Falling Together
by EtherialPromises
Summary: Can Kouta and Lucy preserve their love? Can life continue as normal with the presence of a new but familiar resident? What will happen when peace is shattered and everything the residents of the inn hold dear is threatened? Love, family, and hope.
1. Chapter 1: Salvage Your Salvation

This is a work of fan fiction and as such I don't own any of the characters or anything else from the Elfen Lied series (Though I wish I could claim I had something to do with such a wonderful series.). Anyways, this is in no way reflects actual plot line advances or character development as seen in the manga or anime series.

* * *

Chapter I: Shadow Play

Waning light played along the inn's walls. It raced and traced shadows that fluttered serenely upon the siding whilst not making a sound. A small honey bee flew by a young, dark haired boy who stood entranced in the middle of a garden path. It landed on a flower near by and began to suck the nectar out of it; however, it did not see the spider who waited eagerly for such a blessing on the underside of one of the petals. In a lightning-strike instant, the spider was upon the fly, injecting its poison. However, it could not have predicted that, in its death throws, the bee would deliver one, penetrating sting. One sting was all that was necessary for the spider and the bee to both succumb to one another and tumble, still intertwined, off the flower.

These events transpired, life subsided into death, yet the young man still stood in a stupor, his blue eyes not betraying any of the emotions he felt boiling within him. Reaching inwards, he saw a pair of pink eyes looking back into his. With these pink eyes, there was the feeling of burning desire, a desire to peel away the probabilities and to latch on to that one possibility of happiness that rested there with her. But, it was a dream within a dream. He realized this and brought himself, along with his emotions, to the present. He just didn't know if that's where he wanted to be.

Yet, if he stayed in the past, he would miss this. Everyday, that shadow, would appear there in the gateway and though he couldn't see who it was… he knew because he could feel her looking back at him with feelings that he felt roiling in his own chest. Everyday, he would start, one step closer, then another, and then, and then, his heart would fall from grace as he watched her walk away.

"Kouta?" Yuka called from the small, open dining room, "Are you going to invite that person in today?"

Kouta called out, "Hey," but the words that could have come next stuck in his throat as he observed the shadow garbed figure suddenly tense up. It stood there a moment as did he. A warm breeze picked up and carried one soft, sorrowful word to the young man's ears, "Kouta." Memories of pain, of warmth, of a world gone mad and the moment when clarity finally broke through the dull clouds of incredulity flooded through him. Kouta couldn't move. He stood, his mouth agape, flung open with words that never came to be, and stared into the place where the shadowy figure was standing a moment before.

Walking down the street, she pulled her cap low over her hair. One foot in front of the other she watched herself walk down the sidewalk. Every so often, she would look up as someone walked by. _How would you hurt me? How would you like to see me hurt? Why do you want to make me suffer?_ These questions played through her mind. They wouldn't leave her alone. They burned in iridescent letters with the voices of harpies. She felt so unsafe. Yet, if she wished… oh, what she could do! The things she could do! Make people scream in octaves not previously achievable by human vocal chords. But no. Not since that night. Not since the inn. That stupid little in with its stupid human inhabitants who… who actually… loved her.

She stopped in mid-step. Instinctively, she put her arms around herself, all of them. She enfolded herself. She tried, almost, to close herself out of her own head. She couldn't stand these emotions because, with them, she was vulnerable. She didn't want to hurt anymore. The feelings slowly took up a dull thud inside her and she moved on.

The sun was combusting in radiant orange over the sea when Lucy got to the beach. She looked either way, up and down the beach before she found a small shack. She was fine with that. It was better than killing another family to live in a house for one night before moving on. _Oh God, _she thought, becoming aware of the sense of falling, _Oh God, all those people. The things I did to them all because… But they would never have taken me in, right? They would never have loved, _ME!" she cried as her thoughts reached a pitiful, vocal crescendo. On her knees, she clawed at the sand, glittering like diamonds, digging into her hands like needles. _He couldn't love me_, she repeated to herself again and again, crawling to the corrugated shack that overlooked the turbulent ocean.

* * *

Chapter II: Two Worlds Apart

"Oh my, oh my, oh my," exclaimed Nana in between mouthfuls. "This is so good." She paused, examined her bowl with a little scowl, then held it out with, "Can I have more Kouta-san, Yuka-san?" Her head pivoted quickly between Kouta and his cousin expectantly.

Yuka replied with a warm smile, "Don't ask us, ask the cook." She turned and smiled at Mayu who blushed furiously at the recognition.

"Mayu–san? Please!!" Nana practically crawled on Mayu with anticipation.

"Eh, ehm, sure. That's why I made it," Mayu stammered out with a smile on her lips as a blush continued to run across her face. Nana practically tackled her in appreciation then took another helping and scarfed that down with equal relish.

"Kouta," Yuka gently said, "is everything alright?" Yuka looked at Kouta's face which remained phlegmatic. "Is it that person that keeps showing up?"

"Yeah," Kouta responded despondently.

"Well," she slapped him in the back of the head, "wouldn't it be easier if you just asked the person to come in, baka?"

"It hurts, it hurts!" Kouta's hand moved to the back of his head where his gentle cousin's hand had made contact. "I just, I don't know. It's like I try to get there, but there's something holding me back."

Nana smiled deviously and sent out her vector which she used to poke Kouta's nose. "You mean like that?"

Flashes of what vectors had done in his past, what they meant to the future, caused Kouta to recoil in disgust, with fear. He had never seen them used for anything other than killing.

"I'm sorry!" Nana cried out when she saw his reaction. "I'm sorry," she reiterated and bowed her head.

Kouta tried to say it was alright but the pictures, the memories clawed deeper, so deep that the pain paralyzed his mouth.

"Kouta-san," Mayu interjected, "she can do lots of good things with her ghost arm. She won't hurt anybody." She didn't want to Kouta-san to be upset nor did she want poor Nana-san sad either.

"I…I know," replied Kouta apologetically. "I'm sorry Nana-chan, I really am." Kouta looked up and forced a smile. He didn't want to make her feel hurt. "I know you're a good person; you'd never hurt any one." His smile grew larger, grew more genuine when he saw her contriteness turn to that of happiness to one of contentment.

"Nana's… not… the bad guy," Nana said quietly, almost inaudibly. Suddenly she was startled and cried out as she found herself in the arms of Mayu.

"Nana-san's not a bad guy! Nana-san's a good guy and she's going to be a good cook too!" Mayu gave Nana a big smile which Nana returned happily. Kouta and Yuka couldn't help but giggle a little at the sight of the two cute little girls' happiness.

In the rusted, corrugated shack; sat a pink haired girl. She held on to her cap with white knuckles while she imagined that it was the warm, blue one she had treasured so long ago. She wanted it back; she wanted that day of happiness back. She wanted to smile again with that blue eyed boy who thought her horns were cool. Burning tears ran from her eyes, not just for herself and the things that she had been denied, but for all she had taken from the only one she had ever loved.

"Kouta! Kouta! I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" she repeated again, again, into the desolate night. Tears rained down on the green dress she had gotten herself with some of the money she had gotten from beating a thug down. The light green deepened where her tears fell as they cascaded from her cheeks. Eventually, there was nothing left, not even the energy to lay herself down on the cold wooden floor boards. She just put her head back and let one final teat fall as she drifted into the accepting abyss.

* * *

Chapter III: Two-Way Dreams

Yuka, Mayu, and Nana stood outside the inn, each bundled in a warm sweater to guard against the encroaching cold of the fall. Kouta stood before them on the portico smiling at how cute thee three of them were together and how Mayu and Nana kept bouncing off of each other playfully. It was like a family.

"Kouta, are you sure you don't want to come with us? It's going to be fun!" Yuka enquired for the third time, just wanting to be sure that he knew that he could still come if he changed his mind. He didn't need to change his mind though. It wasn't a matter of mind but of heart, the places of the heart you're not supposed to tread, the places where little girls with horns dwell.

"No, I'm ok. But do one thing for me," asked Kouta with a stern face that gave way to a smile when he revealed his true intentions, "have a good time."

Mayu and Nana shouted cheerily in unison, "We will!" while Yuka smiled at his warmth. That's why she loved him all these years. He had been the type of boy who cared so much, who had such a big heart. He may be somewhat clueless, but he loved with all his heart. Yuka sent a large smile to Kouta who received it and sent back one of his own. He was happy here. He was happy to be with them, he loved taking care of them and that contentment shone out even now. But still, with talons of want still embedded in his soul, Kouta needed to feel one thing. There was still one loose end. One thought plaguing his mind that undermined the happiness he felt and threatened to take down this castle in the clouds he had found himself in.

Yuka, Mayu, and Nana turned to leave. Halfway down the path; Yuka called over her shoulder, "See you in a little while!"

"Ok, have fun!" replied Kouta. He waited, watching them close the gate, while the giggles of all three reached back and graced his ears. He didn't know what to do so he went back inside and lay down. He pivoted his head so he could look out of the open sliding door. Little, pink petals arched through the air, carried by the breeze, carried into his room where he lay reclined.

His eyes followed the small, delicate petals as they danced slowly, brushed by the wind upon the floor by his head. In concert, they danced about each other, coming closer, then falling away, circling, clashing, drawing together but ultimately falling away. The poetry of it made his heart beat slow-down with unspoken, hazy apprehension. He looked up at the ceiling then back outside, to the flowing trees that cried their petals to the wind. His mind faded in and out, and shut down with three cries fused into one harmony.

Outside the gate, the figure waited. She had been waiting for three quarters of an hour, the time telling on her as she bit her lip. This feeling of need was uncomfortable for her for she had never needed anyone. This feeling cut deeply into a part of her where she was still bound and helpless. Yet, she didn't feel helpless to him, not this human. She knew, deep down, that out of all of them, scurrying around the planet, this one person wouldn't hurt her. She smiled to herself, a bitter-sweet smile tinged with hope, with loneliness, and the fear of a future she never thought she could have seen.

Back inside, the blue-eyed boy tossed in his sleep to the horrors of the past. Yet, in the midst of the horror, was a patch of light that held the smiles of those he loved. Here was where he wanted to be; yet, with increasing horror, these scenes of happiness were moving away and by doing so took on a type of spiteful malevolence. They were all there smiling at him: his imouto, his father, Yuka, and even Lucy. But he could not reach them despite the cries and pleas for them to stay with him and save him from this mad world. Farther and farther from him they spiraled as his cries reached a frantic, desperate pitch; a waking pitch.

Kouta rocketed up-right, drenched in a cold sweat, out of breath. The sight and the feeling of those happy, lively smiles still ricocheting around his mind along with the burning piercing desire to reach out to them, to finally join them and add to join them in smiling. He pressed his hand to his face, rubbed his eyes, squeezed them shut, but the dream-vision persisted. It still lingered, light as air, as hot as the pits of hell.

Lucy cast her gaze down, taking deep breaths to calm herself. _Is he alright? Maybe, I bet that he is tired of this! That girl, he must prefer her to… Or… He could never have loved me after the things I've done. I was a fool for ever believing he could. That is it. He never intended to make a move. He just waited it out, figured after a while I would just go away. Oh, Kouta…_ Her hand lingered on the cold iron gates that had now been warmed by her palms. Just a second more of contact with this place is all she needed; just a split second more to have some connection to this place where she had found a bit of happiness in this world. Her hand slowly relinquished its hold, and she slowly came to terms with relinquishing a dream.

* * *

Chapter IV: Wake Up to The Let Down

Kouta splashed water over his face at the sink, the thoughts of those smiling faces now fading in his mind. Some of those faces were gone and would never be seen again but some of them were still her, lingering in the shadows of the world. The idea suddenly sent lightning bolts through him. _Lucy! Oh no, is she there? Baka, baka, baka! Why do you have to sleep so much? _he roared and berated himself as he rushed out of the bathroom and down the hall to the door. He quickly threw it open to find the gate unattended, no shadows there.

Kouta ran, still berating himself in his head to the gate which he threw open to get to the sidewalk. He looked to his right, then his left but saw no one. _Where could she be? She came to me, isn't it fair that I go to her once?_ Thoughts of their past, of places they'd been, of times they had shared. The thoughts crashed and somersaulted through his mind, making him more eager to find her. The night sky bellowed in Kouta's head. Crashes of lightning tore open the night and illuminated a lonely, sad girl sitting alone in the sand by the clawing waves. Kouta knew where he needed to head.

It was noon when Kouta reached the beach. The sea was sapphire blue farther out yet broke into a gentle froth closer in. He saw over the sparkling sand, the gently ebbing waves, a superimposed image of that night, how he had found Nyuu alone and dejected. Superimposed over this was the night when he lost two of the most important people in his life and he was alone on the speeding train. Truly alone. Nothing but the blood of his father, his imouto, who only wanted to protect him, and his own tears remained from that night.

His eyes, full of expectance, scanned the beach in both directions but did not see her. His heart sank low in his chest. The waves continued to roll in gently yet loud enough to conceal the sobbing of a broken girl in a green dress sitting in a small shack.

The sun beat down but was mitigated by the chill wind that drove in. Kouta just went with it, lost in his thoughts of how he could, should he even say it, love someone who took so much from him. There was no sense in it. _But I do. And I don't think I'll be able to stop. That song_, a melody by the name of Lilium danced in dolorous chords across his mind_ we both seem to fit in that song. Both of us are drawn by our own sorrows to it and in it, we find each other. _Kouta came to the outside world when he detected the telltale sounds of misery that he was so accustomed to hearing. The waves muffled and distorted them but they were unmistakable. There was something else to them, they sounded hollowed, like they resounded from something. It was then he noticed the small tin shack he was standing beside.

* * *

Chapter V: The Floodgates

He peered inside and froze. There, with her head resting in her knees that were pulled tightly against her chest, sat Lucy. Kouta suppressed a gasp. Everything he had wanted to say disappeared like a drain had been pulled from his mind that let all his words and intentions disappear. He didn't mind though. He didn't need that many words. He stepped into the hut but saw that his presence inspired no response.

Suddenly, something caught him off guard. It hit him in the stomach so hard he nearly bent in half. He clenched his teeth to silence a rising yelp. His eyes never left the pink haired girl sitting on the bare floor boards. She was the source of it, the source of all this. He knew if he could just get to her, he would be alright. One step in front of the other, he drew closer till, when he was right beside her, he dropped slowly to his knees. He looked at her a moment then, in a quivering voice, he forced, "Lucy?"

She raised her head slowly, revealing bloodshot eyes, brimming with tears. All she could choke out was, "Kouta," before they were in each others arms, safe within an embrace. Both broke down, lost in the histrionics of the moment. Sobbing into one another, accepting the other's tears on their shoulders, they remained, locked safely away from the cold world. They sobbed against one another, their chests rising and falling in unison. Finally, like the sun penetrating the clouds, the tears began to ease.

They let go, slowly, then held each other a little apart so they could look and see. Lucy looked to the side, her already red cheeks staining a little more deeply, as her lips parted slowly then began to form words. "Kouta, you really came. You really came. I just can't believe that this is not some kind of dream." She ran her hand against his wet cheek as if to make sure he was real. "Do you…" the question exploded from her lips of its own accord. She saw the look on Kouta's face and could only imagine the look that was playing over her own. Her hand flew to cover her mouth to prevent any more out-bursts of this kind. It was so ironic she thought. She wanted to bare her soul to him but she was so afraid of giving in to this feeling that he could love this soul stained with blood.

Kouta's eyes expanded with the apprehension of the question. He didn't know what to say. His mind raced between the possibilities but none of them were good enough for all he could see was one right choice he was afraid to admit and a myriad of decisions that he feared would lead to more separation. He suddenly remembered what he had thought before about not needing too many words. With one liquid movement, Kouta pressed his lips to Lucy's. This response was all she needed. This is all she dreamed about for so long, this moment had become her raison d'etre and now, finally, it was hers.

But, did she have a right to this she wondered. After all the problems she caused him, all the pain; did she deserve to have any happiness? As much as she wanted to pull away, she was lost in Kouta's lips. Kouta was oblivious to the inner turmoil of Lucy but keenly aware of his own. His thoughts combated with the feelings rushing through him, the warmth spreading through his body, radiating from his lips and from his speeding heart. He didn't want this to end. He didn't want to loose her again, let the world swallow her and cut them off from each other. Their lips pressed together, their arms drew each other together, clinging greedily, not wanting the world to take this wonderful moment away. Their breaths came in racing bursts as they clung still tighter, almost trying to fuse so they would never have to be deprived of this feeling.

They separated reluctantly and again stared at one another with eyes that drank in what they saw. He ran his hand through her hair and smiled wanly into her eyes which still emitted a stream of tears.

"Kouta," Lucy began, "I can't, I can't understand how you can love me." The visions of what happened on that train burned through her vision, causing her to release a little shriek. She jumped to her feet, turned away, and ran to the other side of the shack before she fell to her knees. She couldn't face him. She clenched her teeth, the guilt beating down the doors of her heart. "You should hate me for everything I've done!" she yelled. "I have ruined your life, I have taken those you loved, I've nearly killed you! Please, please, just hate me!"

Kouta nearly fell over from the force of her pleas, of her misery but he couldn't bring himself to hate her, no more than he could honor her request from the bus that he kill her. The thought sent shrill shivers down his neck. _Please Lucy, please don't push me away anymore_ he begged in his head as he walked over and took her face in his hands. "Listen," he pleaded as, again a wave of sorrow beat upon the shores of his mind, "I hate what this world has done to you; I hate what you did to me, and my sister, and my father; I hate seeing you cry like this," by now the tears were again cascading down his face in magma-hot torrents, "and I hate that I had to be without you for so long; and I hate how when we found each other again, you left; and I hate the thought that I could have to be without you again." He took a deep, unsteady breath, "But I don't hate you!"

Lucy choked on her words. She sat, her mouth hanging open, trying to form words, trying to fight, to back away from this. She felt selfish, wanting to have him, to be with him, to be happy when she had taken his happiness. Kouta stared into her eyes and saw her torture. All he could do was hold her. He enfolded her in his arms, felt her, soft and warm yet trembling in his grip. Her breath came in short gasps as her mind flooded with words and feelings, each vying for attention, for the reigns to her actions. In her own skin she felt lost, swimming in an area she could not fathom the size of. Yet, she felt secure in his arms. He was the only one, always the only one. The only human that did not hurt her. In his arms now, she was lost in that feeling she had only experienced that day at the zoo. That time when they teased and laughed and splashed in the creek . There was no hurt here. There was safety, there was love.

Kouta was conscious of a relaxation of her breathing, a diminution of a tension, of something slipping, and falling away, spent, used, no longer necessary. He felt a return to something of his past, before the world fell apart and dripped with blood. He held Lucy tighter, his heart racing, something clicking into place. He wanted to hold it there, suspend it and keep it with him. Those smiles that he saw in the midst of the sea of the abyss, here with him, inside him, now, at last, he felt again like a child. The terrors of the past, for just a moment, disengaged their needles that supplied a constant drip of poison into the present. For a moment, the blood was wiped away by the tears of contrition. He pushed himself away, and looked upon the face of the girl he saw so many years ago. He looked into the eyes of a fallen angel.

* * *

Chapter VI: Songs for The Free or Address Changes

The shack was oppressive in its bleakness and heat. They were drenched in sweat. Their tears and sweat mixed as it ran down their faces. Kouta rose up and helped Lucy to her feet, then taking her hand, lead her out onto the beach. No one was around; this moment was shared with only them. They were here, making their own world, one in which they could exist. They stood there, Kouta with his arms secure around Lucy's waist and Lucy holding on to his hands, looking out to the gentle sea.

The sound of the sea rose and fell in unbreakable rhythm. The sound was relaxing, almost trance-like. Yet, a sound reached Lucy's ears, not the ocean, but a lower, sound. Wistfully, full of longing, the gentle melody rose and fell, reaching her ears and heart through Kouta's lips. The song from the music box played and resonated through her heart, placing her further into a time when there was so much hope. She closed her eyes and submersed herself in the feeling of peace, of a happiness she did not believe was real. Her half opened eyes saw both past and present at the same moment. Her lips parted and she joined Kouta in his song.

Kouta nuzzled his face into her neck and whisper her name or at least the name he thought was hers. But, she wanted this remaining vestige of the past gone as well. One more travesty to correct, one more tragic wound on her person to attend to. She turned and looked at him, this time with a small smile playing across her lips, the look of a person liberated in her eyes, "There's one more thing that you should know." Kouta cocked his a little to the side, waiting for what new revelation was at hand, a little anxiety causing his heart to beat against the inside of his rib cage. She began slowly, feeling each of the words release another latch, feeling the final mask loosening over her. "My real name," she began, "is Keade." It was just a change in addressing her but it seemed like the little girl he knew from so long ago had stepped out of the armor and put down her weapons. The childish, naïve nature of Nyuu and the tortured creature that was Lucy seemed as revenants, fading into the night of grim experiences.

"Keade," Kouta tried the word out. "Keade," he said again, as if sampling the word, seeing how it felt to his tongue. "Keade," he leaned in low, till their noses nearly touched. Keade recoiled as if shot. Through all her vectors this had penetrated, through her skin, down into her core. Three words packed more power than any of the bullets she had deflected. Three words made her head spin and tipped her world on its axis. She liked the feeling, she wanted to tip the world over further, invert it, and let the blood rush to her head. They moved together, almost instinctively, and held each other.

"Keade, will you come back to the inn with me? Come back home? Everyone would be so happy to have you back." He paused and then added, "I know I'll be."

"Home," Keade repeated. The word sounded strange. Kouta, held her head to his chest. The sun showered his face with warmth, a warmth that even the chill wind had no power to eradicate. "Let's, let's go home, Kouta," Keade finally affirmed. To have a home, not just walls surrounding her. Not a cage to be enclosed in like an animal nor the vermillion rust painted shack, but an actual place to belong. She was thankful, thankful that she was getting another chance. She wanted to leave every one of those memories; she wanted to start over with this boy, this little dream as she had called him. He took her hand and they began to walk.

Hand in hand, they started off down the beach with the golden sand shifting underfoot, leaving a serpentine trail, a temporary record of their travel. Their steps were not rushed, they had time. There was more time than they realized in their world even if time was beginning to run short outside of their sphere of peace. The cogs of a vicious machine began to rumble to life like a giant awakened from its slumber.


	2. Chapter 2: Hold the Path

Sorry, but I still don't own anything of Elfen Lied. I don't own any intellectual property whatsoever. Though, if I did, I would definitely make a second season for all of you.

* * *

Chapter I: Cocoon

The four men sat in a contracted room devoid of windows. The only source of light was the series of fluorescent bulbs that glowed shrilly from over head. Static shadows leaked over the oblong table like oil slicks with souls. They dripped over maps, they flowed over diligently moving fingers, they oozed over pencils that flashed in the light. A thin, bespectacled man dexterously pushed his glasses up on his nose then with a decisive jab of the finger poked a topographical map stitched with lines.

"We cut off here and," he turned the map so the large expanse of blue that bordered the central landmass and continued to the border of the glossy paper was closest to him, "and patrol this area here with cruisers."

"I just don't want the press getting even the slightest wind of this, you hear me?" the square man demanded with a voice like a land-slide. "Even a word, even the suspicion of what we are about to do could take this company down. I don't know about you, but I want to still have a job after this. I like what I do," finished the square man who leaned back with an easy smile thrown across his face.

"I want a complete outline of our strategy, down to the last detail. In, out, and what we do in the middle of it. Also, I need an update on our rules of engagement. I mean we can't have troops out there spraying everything down now can we?" The squad commander posed the question with the idea that people would see his point and chide in with agreement. However, he was met with a silence that was not just from a lack of speech but from the absence of morality of any human kind. He displaced his jaw a little, re-fixed it, then stood back from the table.

There was something uneasy in this assignment. He had lost a lot of good soldiers in the recent past and had felt a lot of regrets that they were never updated or prepped the way he expected. The debriefings were never up to his standard of detail. There were too many gaps that looked like bodies and limbs torn in two and lacunae that looked like bullet holes. The last assignments were prefaced with, "Stay two meters from subject. Eliminate with extreme prejudice at all costs," and something about the target being bullet resistant. At least they were getting new weapons this time. The admins promised that these would limit troop casualties. He hoped so.

"So, how exactly do we expect to set this up. I doubt they respond to little trails of dog food so we can't coax it out like that and I doubt there's a person out there in their right mind who would befriend it so we couldn't use them as bait. Oh, and did I mention the little fact that we don't know where the fuck it is?" the square man slammed his fist down on the table, shattering a pencil that was unlucky enough to be sitting at the point where flesh met wood. The writing end spun in the air and landed at the floor of the fourth man who had not yet contributed anything to this little meeting of the minds.

The squad commander stepped forward again. He was a bit young, a lot of combat experience under his belt, but still of the fresher brand. He was not so desiccated as to not bleed anymore. He started out, hiding the malaise in his voice, "We've got intelligence teams out in the field. They're scouting the area for signs of the target but they've come up empty so far." His chest grew in girth as he sucked in a lungful of the tepid air that got dumped in by the vents.

The silent man picked up the broken end of the pencil and threw it on the table. He liked things to be neat, to be covered. There could be no loose ends in his line of work. "That's alright Major. The time your lost and found antics will provide me with will be quite helpful. You see, I'm predicting that the bridge might fail. I see that the bridge will need to be closed off to the public. I see a quick, painless demolition by night. Lots of booms and bangs and in the morning, the bridge is no more. The wreckage will be taken away, the evidence of anything less than ethical going on will be taken away with it. I think that the new bridge will look very beautiful." He spoke smoothly from his place in the shadows. He seemed a part of the ichorous shadows, running over and through the room, filling every crevice with his words. His smile gleamed from the curtains of black like a Cheshire cat's or one of its distant relatives'; the type with big fangs that like to be routinely coated in blood.

* * *

Chapter II: When the Path Leads Home

Nearing home, the sun was dipping, falling from the sky as was its custom, though it had been moving up its time scale lately, performing its ritual earlier each day. As it sank lower, it cast distorted shadows of all its rays touched. Kouta loved the way when Keade looked up at him the sun caught her eyes and made them sparkle like rubies. Every time he looked at her, his emotions performed contortions; at first joyous for some kind of victory in this cold world, then dolorous for ever happy moment they had been deprived of, then finally content that he could be in this moment with Keade. The past, he realized, was going no where. It was there, in them, and he was never going to be able to remove it. In every smile, there was going to be scenes of misery, a cry of pain, a tear. The thought scared him but the thought of facing it alone made his knees feel a little less sturdy than he would like them to. Perhaps, in time, the smiles they shared would become just that: smiles. Perhaps, love could serve as an anelgesic to their shredded lives and dreams.

The glaring sun made the red tresses that flowed around Keade's face glow like flame. Kouta's eyes played over the person next him again and again. Something seemed odd though. There was something different. The change made itself clear finally when he saw that the two ear-like hors that had protruded from Keade's head were missing. He didn't quite understand what could have happened to them but he could assume that whatever had happened was painful.

"Keade, what happened to your horns?" he enquired with a look of concern radiating from his eyes. Scenes of violence spurted through Keade's mind like blood from a torn artery at the mention of that night. The assault from the perversely childlike Mariko, playing with a toy that she saw as a soul-less play thing and the barrage of lead from the doomed ambush. The memories, hot as lead burned through her and settled in her heart.

"That night, I sort of had them clipped," she said slowly, averting her gaze. Her hand, unconsciously, went to her head and grazed over the serrated remains of her horns. Strangely, even though the horns had been removed, she felt no less like an outcast, no less like a Diclonius. She looked back up at Kouta and offered a smile in compensation for her act of mnemonic necromancy. Still the ghosts played before their eyes, in separate universes of experience they served as a uniting bridge.

Kouta smiled in return and said, trying to create some relief to the pursuing tension, "It's ok. I still think you're cool, even without the horns."

Keade's smile grew. She couldn't help it. The smile grew almost of its own accord. Even in the chains of bondage to the past, she had to smile at the kind nature of Kouta. For the first time in recent memory; not a sob, or a battle cry emerged from her lips, but a giggle. Her eyes widened in surprise. _I can still do that?_ She mused.

Kouta abandoned the ghosts and put himself again in the moment. He was happy for her, even more for her than himself. Yes, he knew that he was finally with the girl he could not help but love and he was happy for that; but, seeing Keade laugh was a victory of her spirit that was for her alone though he was grateful he could share in it with her. He loved this side of her. He had missed it for all those long years. He put his arm around her shoulder and hers slipped around his waist as they continued home.

Keade suddenly stopped. A thought snagged her mind in a net of dread and she was now held down and forced to think about a very unpleasant fact. When she got back to the inn, what could she do? She was going to have to face another cruel wraith from the past. Another blood stained piece of time would be dragged forth from the crypt of the past into the cold light of the now and she would not be able to look away. The worst part would be her inability to take back the wounds she had inflicted. How could she even justify what she had done to that poor girl?

"Keade? Keade, what's wrong?" Kouta had stopped a little ahead of her and was now turned to look at her down turned head. He came closer and bent over to look up at her faced. Lines of tension ran from her eyes that stared wildly into her own world of thoughts. She looked into Kouta's eyes and he was startled by the fear he saw in them.

"What am I supposed to say to all of them? What am I going to say to Nana? She'll never forgive me. Are you sure I should come back?" Her eyes were pleading for some kind of help, something to guide her. The decision was not one she could solve with her vectors. The time when tearing apart what was threatening had passed and she needed a way to repair not destroy; yet, how could she when just about all she knew was to break or be broken? Kouta didn't know what he could say. The whirlwind of confusion had twisted his reasoning from its roots and now there was no mooring for thought. He didn't quite know what he could tell her to do. The future was still not definite. It may have taken on a kinder shape but it still lacked specifics, specific details that could only be laid by others in their decisions and how far they were willing to go in terms of forgiveness and acceptance.

"Keade, I have no idea what's going to happen. If they see you for who you really are, if they see the you that I see, they will be more than happy to take you in. While you were there, even as Nyuu, we loved having you with us. It was like a family. So, I think that they will still love to have you with us again." His words were soft. He wanted to give her hope when he even saw that there were going to be many issues to sort out. His mind was drawn to what was going to happen to him and Yuka. He loved her, there was no doubt, but there was something special between himself and Keade, something that transcended any words he could try to fit to this feeling. He hoped she could understand, he was afraid if she couldn't. He didn't want to hurt either of them, two people who were so close to his heart.

"I don't want to make any more trouble for you, I really don't, so if they don't want me, I won't put up a fight," Keade said in gentle resignation. She hoped this would not be the case, but she couldn't imagine another outcome.

* * *

Chapter III: The Sun Garden Therapy

They kept walking. The familiar stairs that led into the alley which was affronted by the main gate to the inn was now in sight. The alley was defiant of the sun and was thus coated in shadow. They turned to take the stairs. The pressure was mounting exponentially for them both. They both tried to remain strong and walk into whatever situation was going to come of this. The pair's eyes stayed glued ahead as if they were expecting an attack. Keade's chest felt like it was strapped with a vice which was slowly, sadistically, twisting, squeezing the air out of her and not allowing any of the precious substance in. Kouta squeezed the small, delicate hand that lay in his. He was so scared for her. He didn't want her to be hurt again. He hoped that she could join them, that she would not be made to feel like an outcast again. The trial ahead was out of their hands in the hands of a jury who did not even know court was in session.

They reached the gate of the in which the sun managed to reach, painting the bars with its glow which made them look as if they had just been retrieved from a furnace. Kouta opened the gate and let Keade enter before entering onto the garden path himself. Keade stood a moment, her senses taking a moment to switch from high alert to absorb the beauty of the garden she found herself in.

Though it was small, it was beautifully arranged and its beauty was only augmented by the crimson hues donated by the pallet of the sun. The path parted the garden into two sections and was bordered by a few trees whose branches hung wistfully down, clothed in pink petals that gave themselves to the wind. There were banks of flowers of brightly mottle colors, all now closing in the coming absence of the sun that gave them life. Keade felt a sense of peace here in the garden with the flowing trees and the now reposing flowers with their multi-chromatic resplendence. Nature, still in innocence, thrived here. The tree with the flower and between flower and flower; the micro-ecosystem persisted in peace. She did not realize that not too long ago, the spider and the bee, both participants in this system, had lost to one another in combat to survive.

Kouta stood by and watched the tension on Keade's face melt to the warmth of beauty. He was amazed at the difference he could see in her. Also, there was the question of what could have been had none of their suffering taken place. He wanted to take the torments and sorrows she had taken into himself just so as to spare her, protect the enchanted girl he saw gazing before him at nature in its colorful exuberance. He walked slowly up to her and kissed her check. She awoke from the floating colors and looked at Kouta with fiery eyes. She pulled his head to her shoulder and they shared one more hug before they made their final march to the sliding door of the inn.

The presence of another Diclonius in close proximity made itself known to Keade. The presence of a confrontation followed close on its heels.

* * *

Author's Note: Hi. Updating again is fun! Intruige is fun! Kouta and Keade in love is fun! Getting bad reviews is not so fun... so I hope that you like this new chapter. Tell me if you notice any quality changes between this chapter and last or any changes you would like to see made to both and subsequent chapters. What will happen next time, I wonder. I'll either update tonight or tomorrow though I will try to get the next chapter up by tonight so that you can all see and hopefully enjoy.  



	3. Chapter 3: Gifts

Sorry, I still don't own anything from Elfen Lied so this is still just a fan fic. I hope you enjoy.

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Chapter I: Pale Horseman's Implements

The cavernous space was split into stalls. Everything was made of the same dull, blue steel. It was terribly subversive to the senses to see so much blue in one place. Though it may not have been aesthetically pleasing to the eye, it was strong and held the walls and ceiling up and as far as the company was concerned that was just fine.

The squad leader from the conference room walked before a small detachment of soldiers. They all dressed in black uniforms. The shirt and pants were provided with copious pockets for spare magazines. The pockets ran in parallel contingencies down either side of the centrally placed zipper of the shirts. There would be plenty of ammo when the time came.

The squad leader, without saying a word turned his back to the group of soldiers and disengaged a locking mechanism on a non-descript silver case. The soldiers, who stood at rigid attention, did not see that their leader was carefully removing their newest toy. When he did turn around, he held in his hand a rifle. It was a gray metallic color and slightly bulky. This didn't matter or occur to any of the soldiers; they didn't care about the pretty-factor of their guns, just that they made pretty damned big holes in what they were shooting at. This gun took that idea to absurd levels.

"This," the leader started off in a brusque martial voice, "is the newly designed MR-33X, designed specifically for our militia. You may notice that it's a bit bulky," he slid his hands down from the rifle's trigger guard to a portly gas chamber that was housed under the barrel, "but that's for good reason. You will be using a larger form of ammunition that requires the addition of this larger gas compartment to both utilize and disperse the gas from the explosion. But," his voice switched to wry and jocular, "you don't give a shit about that do you? I know I don't give a damn about what they do with the gas. I care about how to use it and what I'll be using in it." The troops started to fidget where they stood. They loved when the leader got into his explanations. While he was not the type to seek out bloodshed or expend more lives than necessary, he did enjoy his weapons and could get entertaining when he described a new addition to the armory.

The leader reached behind his back into the case and produced an 8.62 mm. shell to the group. It glistened in warm brass tone under the stagnant lights of the tomb like chamber. Its tip was a caustic silver that spiked rays of light when tilted the right way. It had a clean, sterile smell that newly molded metal has: like the smell of the furnace itself, burning everything away till the nothingness gains a smell of its own.

"This," referring to the intimidating round that he held in his hand, "is the new 8.62 mm. Harvester Shell, or HS, that the new rifle will be shooting out. Looks like a standard round, yes?" he asked rhetorically, with a serious edge that dared someone to be a smart-ass. When he was satisfied that there would be no puerile remarks, he continues his speech, "Well, it's not. This is not your daddy's old fashioned projectile! I kid you not, these things will hurt when they make contact. You may be wondering what makes this little fella' so dangerous," he paused again briefly then continued. "In that case, let me show you all this little guy's special trick."

In grandiose style, the squad leader slammed open the breach, loaded a round, slapped the chamber shut then mounted the rifle to his shoulder and took aim. He didn't try to suppress the grin that tore open his face as he flicked off the safety and lined the torso model that stood stoically three hundred meters down range into the sights. His eye twitched, his pupil dilated from the sudden explosion of light that erupted from the tip of the barrel. The rifle bucked against his shoulder while a triumphant roar, almost tangible in its force, assaulted his ears. The slide rocketed back, allowing the spent casing to escape its confinement along with a plume of chalk-white smoke that rose, trying to achieve the sky. Spiraling through the air, the brass casing tumbled to the ground in a steady arch. The absence of the silver round as well as the small indentation in its firing ring showed that it had done its job and could now rest. Reaching the ground with a sharp, metallic twang, the spent shell rolled away from the black, well-shined shoes of the squad leader as if it was repulsed that it played a part in such destruction and wanted to get as far away from the barbarism as possible. The soldiers gasped at what they saw three hundred meters down range. Before the torso model had had a chance to recoil from the round's impact, a massive hole had opened in its chest. The roar of the explosion echoed in cadaverous moans around the massive citadel of blue steel.

* * *

Chapter I: Welcome Time

Kouta reached out and slid the door open but stepped back to allow Keade to enter before he followed. She struggled to show a smile as she passed him and entered the foyer. Her eyes were inexplicably drawn to an antique grandfather clock that stood sentinel-like against a wall. It contented itself to click away the seconds that irrevocably symbolized a moment, an event in time. Its large brass pendulum swung back and forth as if with each swing, it knocked another moment into the inaccessible past.

Keade liked the feeling of the place. It was the type of place she would like to wake up in every morning. She couldn't help but come back to that grandfather clock, the guardian of time, grizzled and showing the effects that time had exacted on its frame. Entranced as she was, she still felt the pulse of her blood speeding through her veins, propelled by a heart that beat like a slave driver's drum.

Kouta became aware of the sound of foot steps drawing near. They came hurriedly, even their mannerism denoted concern. Yuka emerged from a doorway trailed by Mayu. Keade stood relieved that she didn't have to face Nana just yet but she knew by the foot steps that were emanating from the room facing the aperture Yuka and Mayu had just emerged from that her trial was about to set upon her with all the weight that responsibility for her actions implied. _No wonder she had not come right out with the other two, she can feel me and she's probably scared of what's going to come about if she faces me _she thought. In the back of her mind, lingered a shadowy feeling of pride in the thought that the younger Diclonius was afraid of her. As much as she didn't want to recognize its presence, her consciousness brought it forward demonstratively so that she had to face it. She was still proud to be a force to be feared. It offered some kind of control, some kind of protection.

Yuka looked at both of them; first at Kouta then at Keade. She didn't like how close they were to one another. She didn't like the way Keade was inching closer to her cousin's hand nor the way his hand was simultaneously seeking hers out; however, she was more concerned with figuring out what was going on.

Mayu, in a new pink turtle neck she had become attached to, looked at Kouta, then Keade on whom her eyes fixed. She was different in a fundamental way. It wasn't just the horns that she noticed were missing from the picture but a sharpening of the features that made her once childish appearance dissolve and transform into a mature, hardened look. Further than even the physical change, and maybe more incongruous, was the expression that seemed so foreign to those eyes. They seemed to be afraid, suppliant though for what she did not know.

"Kouta, are you ok? Where were you?" and to Keade, "Nyuu-chan, where were you all this time? Are you alright?" Before giving either the chance to respond, she strode to Keade and took her hands in her own. Even though she didn't like the fact that she was stealing her cousin from her, she could not possibly hold back on her kindness and genuine concern.

* * *

Chapter III: Enter Hope

In the other room, concern and fear for what walking into the corridor could trigger was strangling a fretting Nana. She had felt her coming, felt her pulse starting to race, started to feel the bitter resentment begin to unsheathe itself. This was not the return of the peaceful and infantile Nyuu but the remorseless killer known as Lucy, who had sadistically torn off her limbs with a smile playing across her face. She could feel her eyes burning, looking down on her with demoniac amusement, like a beast slowly exsanguinating its prey not because it was hungry, but because it enjoyed the smell of blood and the look in the eyes of its victims right before the life flowed out of them and mingled with the crimson pool.

She cringed half in fear of what was going to come the moment they saw each other and half in the anger she felt feeding on her. That _thing_ had made her fail her Papa! She could still feel her own warm blood pooling around her and the look in her Papa's eyes. She dug her nails into her arm but was disappointed when the expected sensation didn't register. _Oh yeah _she thought with down cast eyes. She ran her hand along the prosthetic; a part of herself but still alien. She felt her vector emerge, felt it coil like a serpent ready to strike. She didn't want to have to fight a battle that was going to end with another failure. She was lucky she had come out of the scrapes with Lucy in the past. This time, she might not be nearly as lucky, and if she new Lucy, there were things she could do to her that stretched far beyond death in terms of horror.

The sound of Yuka's voice, motherly, coaxing her out caused Nana to bite her lip with frightful surprise. She cringed as she took the first step, then another, then the threshold to the foyer. Her foot, though it was not truly her own, hesitated. Trying to cross was almost like trying to force herself off a cliff, the first step being the only one that mattered. The foot crossed and she followed, she was off now, and the plummet began. With each step, she was accumulating speed and speeding to what she saw as the jagged bottom. She turned her head, her breath coming in little explosions, to face the assembled people. Yuka still had her head turned to face the direction she was coming from and in front of her…

Keade's eyes snapped on the approaching Nana like a padlock, sealing the moment. Slowly, she walked past Yuka, who shot a look to Kouta with puzzled eyes. All Kouta could do was shrug as he didn't know what he was seeing between the two either. Mayu stood back a little from the scene, her hands clutched together a little. She never knew Nyuu to dislike Nana though she had known that Nana at first had an agenda to kill Nyuu. Was this going to come crashing down right here? The way they walked towards each other was as if they were taking the time to size each other up.

Keade and Nana stopped when they were just about toe to toe. Nana held in the last breath she had taken, waiting for whatever was going to come. Keade was amazed at how different she looked from the broken, fragile thing that huddled down in an over coat that blood drenched night. She was impressed with the artificial limbs that looked so much like real flesh, a stand in for the flesh she had marred in her struggle to preserve herself in a world that never offered anything but attacks. The most tragic thing was that as a Diclonius, the little girl before her had been put through the same things she had endured and she had only added to her agony. Yet, she could have acted no differently. Pain was all she had known, killing her only escape from it. People's feelings were not a consideration in the light of the tortures she had gone through. But, that was not the future she wanted. The past could stand as a monument to the death gods but no more temples would be erected in their honor.

Keade slowly, with care, lifted her hand to the round face of a wounded girl. Her sympathy was growing like the swelling of the sea and collecting in her eyes but she would not allow a tear to fall. No. Not here, not in front of all of them. Maybe one day she could open up but not now. She was still strong and she didn't want any one to think differently. Just thinking of sympathy for herself made Keade feel sick, nauseous with the feeling of being exposed to the world with no place to hide.

As her hand drew closer to her skin, Keade was startled by Nana's sudden jerk away. She expected it but not with the type of terror and revulsion that seemed to push her back like a vector itself. She looked into the neon purple eyes that begged for this to stop, that were confused. What those eyes could not see was the honest wish of Keade's to create a future that would be free of the pain that had scarred the past. She tried again, but like magnets of the same polarity, Nana drew away again. Keade's sense of pride was decaying to the morose while Nana's grasp on the true nature and identity of the pink haired Valkerie was churning on the uncertain grounds that this situation had placed her on.

With just a moment's hesitation, Keade's hand made contact with Nana's burning cheek. They both were shocked to find contact that did not result in pain could be shared between them. Nana's mouth made its best attempt to stay shut but the muscles were indifferent to instruction. She wasn't sure what to do. This same person had mocked her and reveled in her pain when she was defenseless. She had literally torn her to bits and, most sickeningly, had enjoyed doing so. Nana became aware of the warmth of Keade's hand moving down to her shoulder. It moved gracefully like a leaf on the undulations of the wind, and it trembled just as much. As it descended from the curve of her shoulder, the fingers curled and felt for the crease where pink flesh met painted polymer. Keade grimaced as Nana's face, encased in a mask of pain, flashed through her mind.

Keade's arms shot up and latched on to Nana who let out a little yelp of surprise. Keade held on firmly but not with crushing, oppressive force. She held Nana's head close to her chest; then, trying to seal the cracks she feared would gape and give away her emotions through her voice, she lowered her head till it was mere millimeters away from Nana's ear.

"Don't be afraid of me. I'd never hurt you again, not any more. I know it doesn't mean much, and it shouldn't, but believe me." The part of her that still clung to holding power over others wailed in desperation. _This is not what you do to others! You break them down! They must fear you and what you can do to them! If they don't fear you any more, they'll only hurt you! Do you want to die?!_ Its voice, in a tone that made Keade's skin erupt in goose bumps, tried to convince her. There was no reason behind it, just the drive itself.

Nana couldn't let go of the sights, the smell of open flesh, the taste of her own blood. She could not burn away the feeling of the exposed ends of her muscles twitching, wretching, trying to flail limbs that were no longer there. Still, she couldn't deny the person standing in front of her now, trying to convince her that she was no threat to her. What she could deny was the authenticity of this plea. Yes that she could deny. What if, though, she was sincere and she pushed her away? Then what? Just because she didn't make her feel any worse didn't mean that she disliked her any less she affirmed in her mind. _I'll start disliking her again, right after this hug _she affirmed to herself. It felt like Nyuu-san was hugging her, like a sort of innocence was clinging to her though she could feel the cold abandonment of Lucy like an edge that was dulled with the constant battles she had been through and the countless lives she had cut down.

Mayu stood, watching the strangely silent reunion. She saw through the fake little pout Nana put on as she broke from the hug and with a haughty, up turned nose point out that dinner would be ruined if they didn't hurry. She felt a little lilting hope dart through her chest as Nana was given a smile from Nyuu, or Lucy (She still wasn't sure what to call her really.) that she answered with a small nod of her head. She also felt a twinge in her nostril of something burning. A worried expression pasted itself on her face as she turned with a worried squeal to save the food from being ruined.

* * *

Chapter IV: Post Factum

Dinner was very good in terms of food Keade thought. In terms of conversation, well, she couldn't really judge since it was scarce and strained. No one knew where they could safely tread without hitting upon a nerve. The pressure was on for her and for everyone as they tried to figure out how to integrate the newly returned, yet still strange, Keade. She had explained that much to them, her name that is. It was a small degree of familiarizing them with the idea that she was the final outcome of the synthesis between Lucy and Nyuu, neither of which she needed any more. It was a starting point at least for them to come to know her as something other than a helpless child or a blood thirty sadist.

She finally wiggled under the covers of the mat the others had fetched for her. It smelled clean, not at all like the salt, mildew, and fish at the beach. It had been such a long day, such a long life. The blanket hugged her frame as she adjusted the pillow beneath her head. The words Kouta had spoken that day, the feelings she had discovered still existed in her broken self, the feeling of maybe finally having a home lulled her to sleep as a song from child hood seeped through her fading consciousness.

* * *

Chapter V: Night Ravens

The moon's twin reflected off the scope's lens. It was going to be a long night for the two men who sat resolutely on the top of the building, waiting for their prey.

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Author's Notes: I know that these chapters have been a bit slow and a bit low on exact details. But, your patience will be rewarded. The next few chapters, in addition to fleshing out and alluding to what is going on with these shadowy people, will be a bit more fun and quirky. Also, if you are wondering why there is so much emphasis on this event, it is because of the step towards seeking forgiveness and moving forward, not staying rooted in the mistakes of the past as well as showing the psychology of the two characters. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and are looking forward to more. Hopefully there will be another up by tomorrow night.  



	4. Chapter 4: Morning Mayhem

Sorry, but I still don't own anything from Elfen Lied! Anyways, the descriptions have been whittle down a little more for this chapter to see how people respond. I hope you enjoy!

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Chapter I: Morning Rush

Consciousness came in leaps and starts, sputtering to the awareness of something small and warm moving, pushing up against her side. Her limbs were not readily accessible still at this time. All she could do was absently flop an arm or stretch out a leg. Finally, she found that her muscles were under her full conscious control and she lifted the cover to her mattress and with one sleep-hazed eye, looked at what the source of the disturbance was. Cowering beneath the sheets was an obviously distressed Mayu. She raised a finger hurriedly to her lips to indicate to Keade not to say anything.

Keade would have starting asking what was going on but Nana appeared at the door, huffing, her eyes darting about the sparsely furnished room. "Did you see where Mayu went? Did she come in here?" Nana interrogated.

Keade let one glance slip to the little girl whose eyes were pleading back up at her and gave a little shrug to Nana. The purple haired girl turned, exasperated, back into the hall. Mayu and Keade listened as her foot steps took off down the corridor.

"So, would you mind telling me why you're in my bed?" Keade asked with a little, sleep dulled wince as a yawn tried to force its way through.

Mayu put on a big, sheepish smile and, in one breath shot out the explanation: "Nana always tries to help me choose what I should wear to school and it's really nice of her and everything but I really like what I usually wear to school but she tries to make me wear different stuff cause she thinks I'll look cute but I still don't like it so she chases me around the house all morning till she stops and I'm sorry for jumping in your bed Keade-san!"

Keade could follow what she was saying but the whole situation was making her feel like she was having some weird dream. _Though, I prefer having more dreams like this than more nightmares. _Before either one could say or do anything else, Mayu disappeared down through the foot end of the bed. A look of defeat ran over Mayu's face as she was dragged out by the leg by Nana who was droning on about the cutest skirt she had picked out for her and how everyone was going to be so jealous of how cute she looked.

Keade's brain sizzled, then turned off as she let herself fall back on the pillow and drift a little bit back into a self contained surrealism. She didn't get too far though as twin foot steps raced down the hallway, prompting Keade to prop herself up on her elbows to see what was going on. The light from a rested sun cut through the thin material that covered the windows, causing Keade to hold her hand up to shield her eyes to its brightness.

* * *

Chapter II: New Morning, New Call

Kouta awakened to the sound of his door sliding open accompanied by a giggle. He kept his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. He knew that she knew that he was awake but for a few extra seconds of blissful blackness he didn't care. He was waiting for it, his call to get up. _What will it be today? She's become fond of picking me up by the ears so maybe that'll be it._ He smiled to himself. It hurt like heck but he wouldn't choose to start the day any other way than with the help and encouragement of his cousin. He was open to the surprise and figured it was par for the course when he felt a weight dropped on the small of his back and his cousin's hand deliberately pressing down on the back of his head.

"You know something," she began coyly, "maybe you're right. Maybe staying in bed is the right way to go. This," she pushed his head into the pillow, "is actually really comfy." She bounced up and down, each time she settle back down, Kouta expressed an outburst of discomfort. Finally he conceded and agreed to get up.

Yuka removed herself from his body and went to cross the room, turning back to tell him something. But, as she did Kouta turned over, the remnants of his REM sleep poking up through the covers.

Yuka's mouth twitched a little, then contorted in disgust. Kouta too realized the unfortunate position he had put himself and turned in the other direction, blush overtaking his face as he tried to explain and excuse himself through Yuka's screams that he was a pig.

"It isn't my fault!" he defended.

"Pervert!" Yuka called back as she slammed the door behind her. Kouta quickly threw on some pants and a shirt and followed quickly behind Yuka. The sun painted the walls in hues of warm white and shadow. He ran by door after unoccupied door until he passed one that was open and showed a groggy but still attractive Keade who was laying back on one elbow with an arm raised to defend her eyes from the intrusive sun. He stopped quickly and greeted her with, "Good morning Keade. Sleep well?"

"Um, yeah, yeah I did." She offered a smile that Kouta mirrored before he took off down the hall again. Slowly, Keade got to her feet and went to the closet. She walked past the green dress that she had folded up the night before. She might try to salvage it but the smell of the beach had become a part of it, mingling with the fibers and the dye. Opening the closet, she saw a few dresses and shirts hung up neatly. Anything would do really.

It was funny though, she didn't see them bring any clothes in last night when they were bringing in her matters and wash bowl. That would mean that… they had left it all there since she had left. Was it to remember her? _I could only imagine the kinds of memories I left them with_ she thought sarcastically to herself. _Was it because they were expecting me to come back? People can get the dumbest notions of hope in their heads_. A small smile crossed her face as she got out something to wear for the day.

* * *

Chapter III: Responsibility Rails or Playing It Down

When Keade got to the kitchen, the day was in full swing. Mayu was darting from Yuka who had just given her a bag that crinkled in her hand as she ran to leave for school.

"Bye everyone," she called as she disappeared down the foyer to the door.

"Do your best!" called Yuka, Nana, and Kouta in harmony.

Kouta and Yuka were busy over the counter, filling their own bags and deciding who should get what. Keade caught fleeting glimpses and smiles between Kouta and Yuka as their hands moved furiously between counter and bag. Keade's attention was taken by Nana who stood next to the table which had on it a plate of scrambled eggs.

"They told me to make you something to eat," Nana said nonchalantly. Keade stood a moment but took her seat when Nana raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Thanks," Keade said quietly.

"I thought you said you didn't see Mayu," Nana said crossly, hovering near the now seated Keade.

"I was sleeping when you came in," Keade covered.

"You were awake before I came in," Nana coolly countered.

"I was half asleep. The side with Nana on it was the side that was sleeping so I didn't know she was there." She kept a straight face despite the absurdity of what she was saying. They stared back and forth for a moment before Keade finally said, "The eggs smell good."

Nana smiled a little but quickly caught herself and turned on her heels just as Kouta and Yuka rushed by. "Bye," they both called out, though Kouta made a point to stop by the table, place his hand over Keade's and add, "See ya later." He could feel the cold glare of Yuka boring into his head and Keade could see from her position that Yuka was not amused by her cousin's small demonstration of affection. He smiled at her as he turned to go.

Keade ate while Nana wondered around the kitchen, tidying up the odds and ends of the morning. Keade loved the taste of actual food. _The last thing **I** ate_ she absent mindedly mused _was…_the answer didn't come. She had been so out of touch with everything for so long. She regretted the time spent in agony. All the wasted years amassed in what could equate to a neutron star of loss that filled yet simultaneously made her chest feel empty. She realized she had finished eating only when she looked down and saw a few scattered tidbits of egg near the edges of the plate. _Autopilot_ she thought, bemused.

"Um," she struggled to say her name but then just let it slip past her, "what should I do with this?" She knew from the few houses she had been in that some people had dishwashers that automatically cleaned these, she just didn't know if one of those were around here. Nana turned to address her question, seeing this could be a good time to introduce some chores to her.

"That," Nana said demonstratively, "is going to go in the sink. Then you wash it," she made circles in the air to demonstrate. "Once you're done," Nana tossed back over her shoulder, "you can help me with some chores."

Keade stiffened up as se set the plate in the sink. _Chores?_ She smirked at the idea. _Oh well, I'll play along. I'm sure I used to do them before. Or at least Nyuu did._ It couldn't be too bad she figured.

She pivoted her head as she heard foot steps come up behind her to see Nana with a frilly apron held out in front of her. Keade's eye brows arched in an, "Are-you-serious?" manner.

"I wouldn't want you to dirt your clothes and it looked so cute," was all that Nana facetiously offered.

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Chapter IV: Ravens Nest View

From the roof top, Kouta and Yuka were just another pair of heads that bobbed down the street on the way to whatever it was they were supposed to be doing. Nothing too interesting there. The telescope swiveled a little to the right, refocused on a lone man walking down the street on a cell. Back to the left, refocus, and there is an altercation at an intersection. The man behind the scope laughed as one irate man belted the person he was fighting with.

"Yo, Sasake, check this out. We got some entertainment finally," the burly man gave up his position behind the scope to another nondescript soldier. Nondescript save for the scar running down the back of his neck.

"Oh!" he exclaimed in glee as the man that threw the first punch delivered a savage kick to the gut of the other man who had dropped to his knees after the first swing.

"Poor bastard," he remarked without any conviction behind his words. There was still no sign of the horned girl so that wasn't good. As entertaining as the scene was below, the lack of success in that one little area spelled a lack of success in their primary mission objective. And if they couldn't achieve the primary objective they couldn't achieve the second: search for bait.

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Author's Note: I hope this chapter works out for its intended purpose. We are moving past the condensed emotional stuff, there will be more later most likely but for now we'll just play around. Also just to clear some stuff up: Keade is not accepting a subordinate role to Nana. She is offering a type of peace treaty through her actions, demonstrating that she is not the same person she was. I hope enjoyed the bit of ecci I threw in there. I couldn't help it. I hope Yuka fans won't bite me in half. 


	5. Chapter 5: Cutting Through the Dust

Hello all! I haven't uploaded in a while so here is the product of my labors. I hope you like it! Oh, and as I'm sure you already know, I don't own anything from the series Elfen Lied. Nope, nothing.

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Chapter I: Slipping the Shapes_  
_

_She's pushing it_ Keade thought with no small degree of vexation. The frilly white apron was, well, there was just no way to justify it. What was more, she didn't know why such a thing should be here, in existence that is. Nana just waited patiently. Keade was just about to turn to put up a protest when the plate slipped from her grasp and plummeted to the floor. But gravity was not fast enough to beat the speed of Keade's vectors as one caught the doomed plate when it was a few inches from the ground.

She passed the plate from her vector to her physical hand and put it on the counter before she turned to look at Nana. A look passed between them. It wasn't a moment for words or for pleas, for explanations or for dramatics. Yet, Keade wanted the words because this one little moment of silence was uncomfortable. Though for what reason she did not know.

Nana couldn't stand the thought of those things, those vectors. Her eyes exploded in size, her pupils shrank into themselves. _So normal, just like when I helped Mayu put the plate up in the cupboard. _That couldn't be possible though since she seemed to only be able use those to hurt people. It didn't seem fair that she should be able to cast herself again in a different light that didn't correlate to the murderous Lucy. _It isn't fair._

Keade turned quickly, her eyes down cast, her fingers tracing the grout that ran between the tiles of the counter. There had to be something to say, something to break the silence that ran like razor wire between them. Whatever she could have said though, Nana wasn't there to hear it when Keade turned around. The frilly apron was absent too.

Crossing into the hallway, she found Nana coming from a perpendicular hallway with a basin and a few cloths. She set the basin down, some of the water overtaking the tin receptacle. Nana gave Keade a few of the rags while explaining what she was to do ipso facto: "You start here," she pointed to the spot where they stood indicating where Keade would start, "and I will start there," she pointed to the hallway she had come out of. "It's just like washing dishes," Nana began to explain.

"Let me guess," Keade began emphatically as she held her hand up and made it circle.

_She hasn't change that much, she's still got her temper _Nana thought, a little unease creeping into her spirit from seeing that a bit of Lucy's personality could still make an appearance. "Yeah, just like that," Nana said as she turned to tackle the floor.

Keade shrugged and turned to do her portion of the work. She took the cloth that she had wet and started scrubbing. She scrubbed until the hardwoods reflected her face back at her. Her reflection didn't look so bad without the grime of previous days obscuring it. She almost thought that she looked pretty. She took her mind off of the reflection and put it back on finishing this chore though she figured it was going to take a while to finish the job this way.

Nana heard the sound of feet speeding behind her and turned to find its cause. She missed it as she heard the sound go down to the other end of the hall. She kept her head swiveled as she heard it coming back the way it came. Then there was Keade, hunched over, pushing the rag in front of her as she sped from one end of the hall to the other. Back and forth she ran, stopping in between to rinse the cloth. _It's so funny. It's just like Nyuu. But she isn't Nyuu, and she isn't Lucy but she's like Lucy too. _Thoughts rumbled and stirred in Nana's head as she watched her diligently go from one end of the hall to the other again. She realized that she was staring only when Keade stopped suddenly and looked inquiringly at her.

"What?" Keade asked.

"No, it's nothing," blush began to bloom on Nana's cheek as she continued; "It's just that, that was the way you used to clean the floors." She could remember that day well. She couldn't do anything right that day. She wanted to outdo Nyuu. She was still the girl that tortured in her eyes and then she became the girl that, despite her infant nature, she could not outshine. She just always seemed to cause her some kind of trouble. But now, what was she to her? Was this new persona someone that would be the same? Yet, Nyuu, in her own way, had always been kind to her and never made trouble for her intentionally. "You know, you were always happy," Nana reminisced.

"Ignorance is bliss," was the cool, stifled response from Keade. She stood a little while longer with the wet rag hanging from her hand. "I can remember everything that I wish I couldn't from Keade and Lucy, but I can't remember anything from when I was Nyuu. I wish I could remember that much happiness." Sorrow languidly began to sink into her again. _All that wasted time either being too dumb to appreciate things or to miserable to appreciate them. Now I get to live with knowing how much I missed out on _Keade thought bitterly.

"You just have to make some good memories that you will remember now," Nana consoled. The ruby eyed girl in front of her, despite everything she had done, was still an emotional wreck. Nana recognized that she, herself was not a portrait of emotional wellbeing but she could not repress the feelings of pity she held for her. It was just her nature to care about others.

Keade smiled at Nana, who was still bent over the drying floor. She just couldn't stop the tidal wave of guilt from washing over her but the smile held firm and didn't let any seep through. She turned to continue on down the hall before any cracks could possibly develop. She ran down the passageway a little more slowly this time.

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Chapter II: Reverse or Blood Trails

With the floors gleaming in the sun that stretched through any opening it could, a welcome guest, the two Diclonii took up another task. They went to the windows. Nana took the outside while Keade took the inside. They both wiped and scrubbed away, visible to each other but using the glass partition as an excuse to pretend to be oblivious to each other. It beat another awkward situation.

Fate, as fate is wont to, did not want to see them just blithely ignore each other and decided to interfere. The glass of the windows was experiencing a roller-coaster of different conditions. The daylight warmed it with its caress but the night, like a covetous lover, stole the accumulated warmth and left the panes more brittle since they knew what warmth was out there and that they lacked just that warmth. It was just by chance that Keade should be the one to apply the necessary force to finally shatter the delicate crystal.

Without as much as a few sharp crunches and cracks, Keade saw her hand break through to the other side, satin lines of red crisscrossing over her skin. Like paint running, the red began to spread and separate tributaries began to fuse into rivers that dripped off into waterfalls. The pain was sharp, concise, and to the point. Just the kind she remembered so well, just the kind she preferred. She quietly retracted her hand from the frame, being careful to navigate between the shards that still remained in place. She stared a moment at her shredded skin, pulling out a few shimmering razors that had worked their way in and found safe harbor in her flesh.

On the next to last piece, she was distracted by the gasp of Nana who came rushing over. "Oh my God! What happened? Are you okay?" She looked at Keade's placid face and understood. They could both understand that. Pain lost meaning when given in large enough doses.

"I'll be okay. It's not that bad," Keade reassured.

"I'll get some bandages." Thinking twice, Nana turned and said, "Maybe you should come in and wash that out." Keade followed with out a word. The pain was still there but she had lost interest in it.

She went to the sink and turned the water on cold. The blood disappeared in a swirl down the drain. She watched the trail it left down her arms. She could picture a thousand other scenes in which something like this would have been handy to wash the thick liquid from her, from the body strew ground, from a bleeding past. She was rescued from the stained memories when she heard Nana rush back, the contents of a med kit rattling in her hands. "I had to find it," she explained. _No problem. What's a little blood between… _She didn't know the final word to use.

"It's alright," was the only thing that she approved to let out. "Careful you don't cut yourself," she said, nodding to a shard of glass that protruded awkwardly from her.

"I won't feel it anyway," Nana half sighed. A slight bought of nausea caught Keade off guard. She was down, and the guilt was going to beat her into a pulp of regret. She could feel the blood flowing out of her face, down out of her neck. Maybe it was going out through her wounded hand. She felt a small sting as Nana yanked a shard of glass out of the back of her hand. She felt guilty even to bleed when Nana could not feel anything in her substitute limbs.

"You don't need to do this. I can take care of this," Keade offered.

"Don't be silly," spat Nana. "It's not easy to wrap up a wound with one hand." She fished a white plastic spray bottle from the kit and said blandly, "This is going to hurt." Keade barely flinched when the antiseptic seeped into the exposed flesh. It was more like a slight reverberation of the nerves than a recoil.

Nana began quickly wrapping the bandage around the injured appendage. "What are we going to do about that window?" asked Keade, looking at the bridge that she had made between the outside and inside of the window.

"Well," she paused as she tore the cloth and found a piece of tape in the kit to fold the bandage together, "I don't really know. They replaced it when I broke the entire thing."

"Wow and I thought I messed up." Keade offered an easy smile.

"I couldn't get the stain out!" yelled Nana. "I just didn't realize it was on the other side of the glass." A smile curled one side of Keade's mouth.

"And so how'd you break the whole thing?"

"I pushed a little too hard and knocked it of its track… I sort of went with it too so I was sort of in the same position you're in now." They both stood for a moment, words again taking their leave. Keade flexed and extended her hand, felt how the wrapping clung to her firmly but didn't cut off the circulation.

"Nice job," Keade said with honest appreciation.

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Chapter III: The Living Amongst the Dead and its Consequences

There was no one like Nana to bind the wounds of one Diclonius back at the facility. The video camera stood idly by, just a spectator that took note of everything and relayed it back to others. The camera took note of the tears running down the naked girl's cheeks, the blue hair that was wet with sweat and blood that clung to her chest thereby obscuring her breasts, and scars that ran across her pale skin.

"Okay, loading seven rounds, standard type, into weapon. Launch in," the calm voice calmly counted down as a belt automatically fed the 5.56 mm rounds into the weapon that hung suspended from the ceiling and pointed at the defenseless girl who stood lashed to the wall three hundred yards down range.

She heard the click-click-click of the rounds entering, she heard the mechanical snap of the firing pin pulling back. Her tears came faster, her choked sobs, making her chest heave and convulse. She wanted to go away, get far away from here. But where? There was no where for her to go. She didn't belong anywhere. Her sobs intensified, making her wretch in misery. Her wrists hurt every time she lurched forward. Her heart hurt with every breath she took. She often wondered why she didn't just let the rounds get through her vectors and end her sorrow defined existence. Yet, as she heard the sharp explosions come from the other end of the chamber, she couldn't help but shield herself with her six vectors, blocking all seven rounds.

The camera caught the image of the bullets stopping in midair in front of the girl. It saw her grit her teeth in the agony that was not death. It told the soldiers in the other room everything it was seeing. They sat around the monitor, watching the test in real time. They sat and watched. She sat and watched with out expression.

"Now, switch belts and feed in 7 HS rounds. Fire in," the voice counted down again. He looked out of the one way glass, saw the twelve year old Diclonius squirm in her restraints, saw only a test subject that could be replaced by more test subjects.

She looked up at the glass, saw herself reflected in it, and only imagined how the monsters in there saw her. Sorrow was beginning to burn, to grow claws, and fangs and morph into rage. _If I ever get a chance I swear to God that I'm make them suffer. They will suffer a million times more than they could ever hurt me!_ Again the click and clack of the gun sounded around the room but she had a plan this time. She could use the rounds to break the restraints. She could get free and walk right up there and…

The cracks were back, one after the other; however, the young Diclonius was too wrapped up in thoughts of the pain she could inflict to notice that the explosions were more rolling, thunderous than the cracks that had preceded them. Three rounds became lodged in her vectors, but, to the girl's horror, an explosion blew her vectors out of the way letting four rounds penetrate into her chest and abdomen. In the few seconds she had left, she was as thankful as she was disappointed.

The white coated angels of death watched as the girl turned into a cloud of blood and took some notes before calling the cleaning team. They needed another specimen to demonstrate to the next group what their new weapons were capable of.

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Author's Notes(s): Hi all. This is most likely the next to last chapter I'll be writing for a while since college calls! I hope you like it. It starts off a little slowly but I think it nicely shows off the synthesis that occured between Nyuu and Lucy. It also shows the awkward and patch-work relationship between her and Nana. Look for the duality between the response to blood and pain between the different groups of people. Next time, there will be some more cuteness I think. So, stay tuned.  



	6. Chapter 6: Break the Bonds That Break

Hello all. This will be my last submission for a little while. I have college and other fun responsibilities to attend to. Sadly, I don't own anything from the Elfen Lied series.

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Chapter I: The Little Push

The rest of the day had passed uneventfully. After the two had finished cleaning the windows, they had dusted a bit. Now, they were waiting outside for the three to come home. Nana was playing with Wanta as Keade watched on. Wanta barked and yipped happily as Nana petted and cooed to him, his moth open and his tongue lolling lazily out. She rubbed behind his ears then sat back down on the portico besides Keade.

Wanta continued to yip in his high pitched tone. Each time he barked, he teetered on one side, like he was naturally off balance. "I think he wants you to play with him," Nana began.

"Me, play with him?" She didn't really think of herself as the playing type. She was always a little weary of physical contact. Well, except if it were Kouta. She actually felt better when she was in his arms. "No, I think he'd prefer if you played with him."

"How can you tell?" asked Nana playfully.

"Well, he leans a bit more towards you when he barks," Keade pointed out with her good hand.

"I think he's just a bit more lopsided on that side," jested Nana with a giggle. "Go on and just pet him," Nana encouraged. "He won't bite."

Keade bent from her place next to Nana and let her hand run down the warm, fuzzy back of the now placated Wanta. A small, wistful smile shifter her features as she scratched behind the bouncy puppies ears. "He's sort of like the dog I had a long time ago," Keade let slip, allowing herself to be transported back to that night she met the scraggly mutt that had become her only friend.

Nana was surprised. She never pictured Lucy, now Keade, as having a pet. She admitted to herself that she could not really see the girl as being able to have a caring nature at all. "Really, when did you get him?" Nana wanted to know more, to maybe understand how she could have ever have had a pet; moreover, she was interested to know more about who she was before all of this.

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Chapter II: Bury the Hatchet In Yourself

"I found him one night." The feeling of the cool breeze and the surprise of finding another soul in the darkness hewn forest washed over her as if she were still there while she continued, "He was really my only friend when I was at the orphanage." Then, fast forward to that day.

Nana noticed the look of panic flash through her eyes like wind-swept flame, saw her jaw clamp down. She didn't know if she should dig any further down, didn't want to disrupt the paper-thin bed rock of her emotions; but, she wanted to know. She wanted to see what had become of the girl from the orphanage and her dog.

The question made Keade loose control for one moment; one moment that, like the guards of a prison camp walking away from their posts for just one moment, allowed a renegade tear to jump the defensive walls and see freedom. She was back there, in there grip; cold and hard and inhuman. She could feel the horror, the helplessness rising in her like acrid bile. Her heart began a frantic allegro that was quickly spinning out of control. The blood smeared on the vase…the yelps of the puppy… the laughter of those monsters! _NO! NO! NO! _she cried to both past and present.

Confused and a little afraid, Nana watched as Keade jumped to her feet, a crystal tear jettisoned from her scarlet cheek, and turned before she huddled into herself, shaking. Keade's breaths were coming through a struggle to control her spasmodic diaphragm; her nails were digging into her own flesh. Nana didn't know what to do. She was caught between the bitter resentment she had for what she had done but now there was something else. It was like a curtain raising a little to reveal what she had half suspected cowered behind. She assumed her feet, and slowly started to walk. Within a footstep, she felt something press against her chest, holding her back.

Half choked, she heard Keade speak, "Don't give me any pity. Save it for yourself, you deserve it more than I do." Keade bit her lip, shoving a rising sob back down as the face of another whom she could not protect flashed before her. She didn't really know what she was running from; she just knew that they had found each in the cold warehouse and had been a small source of comfort to each other for a little while. Until, she had fallen just because she had been with her, because she could not protect her. The ugly, defiant, ever-hungry beast of loss reared its head and roared promises of consuming more of her, taking away everyone from her.

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Chapter III: The Crying Mirrors

Nana brushed the vector away with her own vector and walked up behind Keade. Slowly, she circled around and looked into the eyes of a girl who had fallen into a pit of regret, sorrow, and pain. In those eyes, she reflected back through her pain, through her anger, through all the things that had been denied her. Nana for a moment lost her own personal pain and saw the totality of what they had been through and put each other through. However Nana was not as strong as the defiant Keade who struggled to keep the tears from brimming over and she allowed her eyes to combust into tears. For now, she saw through Keade's eyes by realizing that they stood on common ground; that they were thrown together as enemies but could be closer than they realized. Her arms wrapped around Keade and felt strong arms envelop her as well…then another pair, then another pair. It was an embrace that could be shared only between Diclonii.

Far from the revulsion she had expected she'd feel, Nana felt a small sense of a victory. It wasn't Nyuu clinging to her nor Lucy crushing her, she was holding and being held by a unique individual who needed a friend. Yet, she had done nothing to defeat Lucy. Lucy had just ceased to be, had been overcome. Could she be her friend though? Could she ever shake the feeling of pain and helplessness that soaked into her that day?

"I don't know what I can do," Nana began to explain, a little sniffle serving as a period at the end of her sentence. "I just don't know how I can ever just forget what you did to me."

"Nana," hearing her name come from her mouth shocked the both a bit, "I can't even forgive myself for what I did to you. I can't expect you to forgive me if I can't let it go myself."

She wanted to believe that this was real but her memories were making things not so clear. Finally she brought her thought out, her wish to believe that something so idyllic could truly be, her wanting to trust her and not hate her anymore. "But, I just can't help picture that day. I can't forget what you did and I wish I could, I wish we could have met like this and been friends but it all happened and we can't go back so I don't know what to do." Again, she sniffled and wiped her eyes.

"That's alright, though. Even if you can't, at least you know that I'm not a monster, I'm not that bad a person and that means so much to me." Keade's voice threatened to crack at each moment and give way to a torrent of tears. _Hold on damn it! Don't fall down just yet! Please just hold on _she pleaded with herself.

"I'm not the bad guy," whispered Nana. All the times she had felt like she was wrong and all the moments when she felt excluded and hated came out of the shadows. With them came those moments when she felt that she belonged, those times when the world was not so scary anymore and something so simple as a smile or laugh made all the difference. Keade had yet to really find that. Until she did, she was like she had been and… Nana threw herself against Keade and cried for absolution she wished she could give. She cried for all the pain that they had been through and for what she couldn't see before, for what she couldn't accept before: they were so much alike.

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Chapter IV: Lessons

Mayu entered, followed by Yuka, then by Kouta. Everything was the same, everything was normal. Wanta lazily sat on his haunches and stared blankly around him. What was out of the ordinary was the two Diclonii who sat together, elbow to elbow, not saying anything. As they walked up the path, the two rose and greeted them. There was something in their mannerism, a sort of worn out vibrancy. They didn't know if it was something they should ask about so they let it go and all went inside.

Keade tried asking if she could help with any of the cooking that was going on in the kitchen. Yuka wanted to give her something to keep her busy, to make her feel a part of the action, and to keep her away from Kouta but there really was nothing she could say. Whatever she said would look transparent as an attempt to keep Keade pre-occupied. "No, that's ok Keade-san, we've got everything under control," then hastily added, "though you're welcome to stay around in here if you want."

Keade quietly declined her offer and walked back into the other room where Kouta was sitting in a red chair. His dark hair fell in his face as he let his head hang over the book he was studying.

Soft footsteps approached Kouta. He had caught a glimpse of pink hair swirling in the gentle breeze that allowed itself into the room from the broken window pane. He put the book down and looked with a smile already in place. Keade took a seat in the chair that faced him, settling on the edge of its cushion.

"Is your hand alright?" Kouta enquired, leaning forward as well.

"Yeah, it's good. See?" She rotated it and flexed it back and forth to demonstrate that it wasn't causing her any discomfort. "I sort of feel bad about the window though. But I guess at least its one less we'll have to clean."

Kouta laughed and took Keade's hands in his own. "So, what are you studying?" Keade asked.

"Oh this?" Kouta nodded to the heft text that he had balanced on the arm of the chair. "That's calculus. It's really boring." He gave her a, "Trust-me-on-this-one," kind of smile.

"Could I see?" Keade asked, cocking her head to the side.

"Sure," Kouta said. He was quite happy that she had taken an interest in what he was doing. _She's interested in me but what does she like doing? _he wondered. _After being away from everything, she probably hasn't had enough of a chance to get to like anything _he figured. Still, he wanted to know what he could do that would make her happy. Keade rose and to an abashed Kouta settled down in his lap. He nearly dropped the book as he felt his face begin to turn scarlet. Keade saw his flustered reaction and smiled.

Kouta finally pulled himself together and began to show Keade what he was studying so intently. Every so often, his eyes would wonder away from the book and drift up to the face of the pink-haired beauty. He could not help but love her features, the way her jaw line curved or the way her eyes looked so intently set. He'd manage to catch himself just as Keade began to suspect that he was more concerned with her. It was certainly flattering she thought. She liked how he she could feel his eyes on her.

Kouta got carried away and stopped talking all together and just fixed on her face. Fixed on the gentle rise and fall of her breathing, the small smile that curled her red lips as she saw him admiring her; Kouta drew closer. Keade's eyes began to close as she lost herself for the moment then found herself with her lips against Kouta's. Her arms wrapped around his neck and held him close, while Kouta's locked around her waist. Lost as they were in each others lips, in the feeling of the other's pulse beating faster, in the love they felt for each other; they did not hear the door slide open and Yuka, with eyes like vacuums, absorbing what she saw. Not until the door slammed and they heard Yuka placing the blame on Kouta with roars of, "Kouta, you pig!" did they separate and offer each other a warm smile.

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Author's Note(s): Hello. I would have liked to save the Nana/Keade reunion for a later chapter but I thought it would just draw out the story a bit too much. I would like to have the next chapter get a little more dangerous so we will then be getting into some of the more action oriented parts. I hope you've enjoyed this chapter and I hope that you don't expect this content little peace to hold. Things are going to get messy soon!  



	7. Chapter 7: Not So Strange a Stranger

Hello again. Um... I don't own anything, I mean, nothing, nada, nihilum from the Elfen Lied mangas or animes. Sorry.

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Part I: Hope Against Hope

"Oh God no!! No, no please!" Crimson splashed the wall and slowly, methodically dripped down. Small footsteps echoed and slapped through thick crimson. The long, brilliant brown hair swept behind her. The long corridor stretched out before her. Yet, she was outside of here. There was no corridor, nor screams of the wounded and dying, nor the feel of cold ventilation sweeping over her nude body. She was dreaming.

A strange mixture of past and fantasy played across the synapses of her burning brain. There were smells there, like burning holes, that cut into the realm of what she wished from the world she knew. She wanted to tell her she was not a freak, that she could get better and change. She would cut off her horns, anything. She wouldn't be who she was anymore. In her head, and only in her head, it worked. The men put down their weapons and just disappeared. There was no fight, no bloodshed. In that place, she had her mother. In that place, she grew up, went to school, and was watched by her loving mother. There was still that smell. It traveled with the clouds that gracefully roamed by the always shining sun in her mind. The smell of gun powder and scorched flesh. She could see eyes brimming with tears, each releasing into the air as she fell.

"Mama!!!!!!!!" Her baleful cries roared and wound down the corridors. Her vectors clawed and raked the dead blue walls around her. She wanted so badly to feel her safety one more time. Just one more time to tell her how much she loved her. A volley of nine millimeter rounds pounded impotently on the wall of her seven intertwined vectors. She was so hopeless. She didn't care to kill them nor did she not want to kill them. They were just there, mocking her just by existing and she couldn't stand them for that.

Two vectors shot back and propelled her slight figure forward while the other five continued to serve as a shield. As soon as she was in range, she made sure that this one no longer annoyed her. There wasn't much left of him to annoy her now. Most of him was strewn for the next twenty feet and all over the soldier's comrades who rounded the corner just in time to see their fellow soldier get turned into little more than flaps of raw meat.

"Jesus fucking Christ! Kill it! Fucking kill it!" one of the soldiers screamed, his finger coiling like a snake around the trigger of his MP5. The stony tat-tat of the gun shots was matched with dull thuds of the rounds impacting with the nearly invisible barrier that enveloped the girl; Number 13 to the scientists, but to her mother Mariah. Horror, fear, then pain raced through every fiber of one of the visor wearing henchmen as two vectors, like finely honed katanas, sliced him first in half, then decapitated his torso as it slipped with a sticky sound to the floor. The next soldier; just as he turned to escape, to maybe run another forty feet before shooting himself in the head to escape what he had seen; was grasped by the back of the neck by a cold, spectral hand. Before he even thought to scream, to beg, his skull was beaten into the wall, denting its cold surface, sending sounds of crunching, and gibbering gurgles propelling down the hallways.

When there was no more head to grasp, Mariah simply let the lifeless body crumble to the floor. Somewhere, in a place this didn't need to happen, she was clutching her mother. They were at the park. No, now they were at her graduation. Better yet, her mother was dabbing her eyes with a tissue as she watcher her daughter get married. Yet, in each one of these visions, her mother looked different. Her shirt always had the most peculiar stain of maroon on it. Just like….

She didn't want to think of it. She couldn't. "Mama, no!!" she screamed at the vulgar world around her as she saw her mother jump to in front of the men who rose like cruel mountains in front of her. She saw her strike one as he pulled out what looked to her like a massive cannon that he wielded with ease in one hand. Saw her grip his arm, saw her pull the weapon away from her direction, directly into her own chest, the chest that held a heart that beat only for her daughter, whom she died to protect.

"Excuse me, sir," a man in black military fatigues began to the back of a chair over which he could make out the graying dome of a head.

"What is it?" the white dome-head inquired without moving.

"We have a situation. A breach in containment. Approximately fifteen minutes ago, a test subject broke from its restraints and we have not yet been able to neutralize the threat."

The graying head began to bob. At first it was only like a barnacle encrusted buoy upon the graying seas but soon became a rapid, fitful jerking. From the chair, he could hear a button being depressed and a telephone line creaking open.

"I'm happy to report that your men will have some field experience. Prepare a contingency and have them assemble at R-level." The line snapped shut in concert with the chambering of an 8.62 mm round.

* * *

Part II: A Trade

"So much for cooking," Keade said. Mayu and Nana both stood a little bemused, a little frustrated, and a little relieved that Keade wasn't as short tempered as Lucy. She looked down with dismay at the train wreck that was supposed to be a side dish. _Not really a home body I guess_ she thought. As much as she thought how absurd it would be to be a homicidal Diclonius with the ability to cook she liked the idea of learning some kind of normal habits or skills.

"Well, if I can learn to cook, you can too," Nana said comfortingly.

"Trust her on that one," Mayu chimed in demurely. Nana's head pivoted to reveal a vexed expression that made her purple eyes turn into little slits of vindictiveness. Mayu stepped back, waving her hands, trying to explain that she didn't mean to offend her, saying how far she had come and how she had turned into a great cook.

As had become common between the two Diclonii; Nana initiated a bit of banter that, like little sparks, managed to flare in harmless starts. "Yet shouldn't you instinctively know that when flames are shooting out of something to turn off the stove?" A pair of flaming pink eyes glared at her, shooting an unsaid warning to watch herself.

"I made this mess," Keade began while she busily rolled her sleeves up past her elbows, "so I'll clean it up." She could have very easily used her vectors to cut down on the time but she disliked using them in front of Nana and so did things the way a standard person would do them. "Does it get easier?" she asked as she emptied the failed attempt of hers into the garbage.

"You just need to get used to the kitchen and stuff. Once you start to get it, you'll be fine," Mayu encouraged. She went over to Keade's side and tried to help but she insisted that she could do it so Mayu backed off a pace. She stood there for a moment, her hands clasped together in front of herself. She wanted to ask something about her. She wanted to know something about her, though she wasn't sure what she wanted to know. She wasn't really sure what she could ask since she didn't want to make her upset and she knew that she had had a difficult life. Every so often, her eyes would lift from where she had let them rest and settle on Keade but she could never think of what to say to her.

* * *

Part III: Need to Understand

Keade's head turned and caught Mayu looking diffidently at her. They both stood a second, just looking at each other, not sure of what there was to be said. Mayu cast her eyes down in embarrassment and offered her contriteness as blush emerged on her cheeks in startling intensity. "I just," she began just as she realized that she had no place to go, "I don't know. I want to know something about you. I'm sorry that I'm prying it's just that Kouta seems really happy that you're here and you seem to be getting along with Nana now and Yuka sort of seems bothered when you're alone with Kouta and I like that you're here but I'm just sort of confused about you."

Keade's head warped as she listened to this torrent of observations. She herself wasn't so sure about herself. What could she say? What could she really tell her since she didn't know that much about herself? "I'm not really sure what I could tell you. What do you want to know about me?"

"What kind of things can I ask you?" Mayu asked as she tilted her head, her black hair falling on her shoulder.

Keade wondered. What part of her past was safe to tread on? It was like a mine field that she herself did her best to circumnavigate; she couldn't help but balk at allowing someone who knew nothing about her test the grounds. To venture into those dangerous fields under which events loaded with explosive emotion were concealed and ready to spring with little provocation was a dangerous affair. She didn't want to get in too deep; yet, when she thought about it, she realized she knew nothing about the little turtle neck wearing girl either.

"How about this?" Keade suddenly thought, "I don't really know anything about you either, so what would you like me to ask you? Anything you'd like to tell me I'll tell you, ok?"

Mayu brightened at the prospect of making a connection with this strange resident. She was the only resident she didn't know anything about. The only things she really observed about her were conflicting pictures of savagery and toddler-like innocence. But now, she was going to find out at least something about her. The only problem was that she was going to have to tell Keade about her. What if she asked a question that she herself didn't want to answer? How would Keade feel about such a thing if she herself didn't want to talk about such things? Mayu's little mind twisted in circles trying to weigh out each question, thinking of what could be safe. Though she tried to stop it, Mayu could feel the blood vessels under the skin of her chest expand as a tide of red swept up towards her throat. _I love my turtle necks _she thought to herself, closing her eyes a little and pulling her turtle neck up a little farther up with a gentle tug.

Keade had shifted her position to place her hands on her hips. Mayu realized that she had not been attentive to the compromise she had agreed to; however, when she looked at the smooth features that looked back at her, there wasn't annoyance but mild amusement. She felt a little better. At least she wasn't making her angry. If she got angry or started to dislike her she might not want to associate with her again. Despite being in a stable home, she still remained at night sometimes, allowing salty bulbs run down her hot cheeks while thoughts of being abandoned carved out furrows of anxiety in her heart.

She began, as she usually did, with a slight tremor of uncertainty in her voice, "Um… how old are you?"

"Nineteen so far." She then tilted and lowered her head in indication that it was Mayu's turn.

"I'm fifteen… and a little bit I guess." Mayu bit her lip, not so much to divert her racing nerves with a wall of pain, but more as an a little signal that she was uncomfortable, that she was feeling awkward. She couldn't help it. That one night, when she had finally decided to run from the abuse, to claim her body as her own and not another's play thing, she had become fond of developing little superficial ticks that let someone know when she was nervous. Keade stood impassively; she was accustomed to the uncomfortable, to tension. In a sense, Keade had become a spring that had been worn down enough to become easily flexible under pressure. It had yet to be seen if she could still use that same spring to close the iron jaw of her rage down upon some one foolish enough to attack her.

* * *

Part IV: Where We Ourselves Fear to Tread

"You must know a lot about me." Keade cracked a wry smile and relaxed a little more by leaning on the counter top. She was hoping that maybe things would be a little more fluid but she was interested. So young, yet obviously so insecure. A little tick, biting her lip, pulling up her turtle neck to hide the creeping rouge; they pointed to a girl who needed to point out her fear, she needed to mark off the bounds.

Mayu recoiled slightly, unable to make sense of the enigmatic Keade's comment. _Had I asked the wrong question? Did I make her uncomfortable by starting to ask her questions then not knowing what to say? _There were a thousand things she was wondering, a thousand things she could fabricate to hypothesize why she wouldn't want to bother with her.

"What do you mean?" Mayu finally stammered, the crimson exploding through her cheeks.

"It's just that you didn't ask me anything else besides my age. So," she let the vowel linger a little, "it must be that you know quite a bit about me."

"No, Keade-sama," Mayu hastily interjected, "I mean, I don't know that much about at all. I don't even know where you come from! Where are you from?" Mayu felt a little twinge race through her nerves, a current that lacked the features of fear or sadness but was a vague feeling of apprehension that comes from not knowing the implications that out actions have wrought yet knowing that they somehow hurt someone. The humor that had made Keade's expression seem for the moment warm and, almost motherly, drained out almost immediately. What was left was a pale, ghostly vestige of scars that rode superimposed on a person that only asked to live life as any person would but was denied even such a humble wish.

Keade looked down, her soul visibly cut and bleeding. The life from her eyes began to flicker out and be replaced by the haze of the tormented past. Mayu panicked. She didn't mean to hurt her. She only wanted to get closer to her, to know more about her. She wanted to befriend her. Now, Mayu watched as that possibility walked away, lead on a leash of suffering that was not meant to be breached.

"Keade-sama! I'm sorry. Please forgive me, I didn't mean to ask you something that would make you sad!"

Keade steadied herself against the counter. Her hand clutched it, her knuckles blanched as she squeezed tighter, squeezing the present so that she didn't slip into the blue, asphyxiated past. She diverted her eyes; she didn't want Mayu to see more of her pain that she had to. She felt bad for herself at this moment. She hadn't done anything to deserve the life she had gone through. Yet, she sort of felt bad for little Mayu as well. She only wanted to get closer to her. Through the bitter pangs of cold steel and snapping bolts she struggled to force out, "Don't worry Mayu. Um," her mind fumbled for the words. She didn't know how to put it. Her mind was being dragged in between the swirling frenzied panic to escape by any means and not wanting to frighten Mayu with another of what were becoming recurrent episodes of flashbacks and anxiety attacks. Breathing in one turgid shivering breath, then exhaling, then another more steady intake; Keade looked back up at Mayu and slowly answered, "It wasn't someplace like this. We didn't have a nice garden or a kitchen or bed-mats. It was," the soul-less blue walls closed her in along with restraints and the pain, "it was," she faltered. One more word. _You know you feel it. You might as well say it. You're not week. You're not falling down. You are strong for finally letting someone in. _A single tear rolled down her cheek, she grit her teeth to prevent any from following and gave in. "It was scary."

Mayu thought back. She felt him looking at her, his lips pulling back in perverse enjoyment. He liked the way it felt. She knew he did. But worse than that was the way he made it hurt more then when she began to cry, he made it hurt worse. She felt so ashamed, so alone, and so frightened. Oh God, that crying night when she ran away. The clouds had indeed cried with her as she ran from everything that was scary, everything that hurt her.

Without a further thought, Mayu placed her hand over Keade's. Only then did she realize that it was her turn. Her stomach contorted as her knees became ethereal and seemed insufficient to hold her up.

Keade broke a wan smile then innocently asked, "What's your story?"

Mayu froze. She couldn't. The words refused to materialize. She didn't even think that she could imagine herself telling any one. She would be left alone with her secret till she died and she was alright with that. With all the trepidation of an animal facing a predator, Mayu took a small, calculated step back.

Keade could read the signs. They were just the reverse of hers. She would have taken one step forward, confront and neutralize the threat. She wanted to know but she wasn't ready to push her.

"Mayu, you don't have to." She couldn't help but wonder what she had gone through. Whatever it was, it was enough to land her here, enough to have taken her from her home.

"Thank you," Mayu choked out. "I don't think I could have anyway. I'm sorry."

A small smile again softened Keade's features. In return for that little bit of human contact she received a moment before, she leaned in and placed her hand over the delicate, quivering hand of a still frightened Mayu.

"You should never have to apologize for being afraid."

* * *

Author's Notes: Hello. Sorry there is no Kouta/ Keade action but there will be in the next one. Actually, there will be a lot. And there will also be a resolution to what's happening in the complex. So, look forward to it cause I'm going to try to get it out sooner than I got this one out. 


	8. Chapter 8: Moonlight Rendezvous

Sigh, I don't own anything from the Elfen Lied manga or anime. Sorry. Oh, and it gets worse. I also don't own anything nor am I affiliated with VNV Nation from whom I borrowed a lyric for a section name.

* * *

Part I: All You've Got to Loose is Lost

The round made a screeching noise as it pierced the air. Still hot from the explosion that had rocketed it from the barrel, it left a heat wave that distorted the image of what was behind it. The ripples of heat obscured the masked men who had fired the round as if one were looking at a reflection upon a puddle, the waves changing the reality that got caught in them.

The silver tip, glowering in anticipation of completing its mission exploded in the vectors that were now partly visible due to the smoke that clouded the corridor. Like a Hydra realizing that its existence would now be only a memory lodged in a myth, the vectors convulsed with the shock of the explosion. The moment was terrifying. The smells and the fear, like an internal explosion, tore open her fragile heart. What poured out, however, was a putrid concoction of rage and abandonment. Without any preemptive tactics, without concern for this new threat, and without concern for whether she could hope to survive; Mariah charged. Her teeth bared, her eyes narrowed; she charged with a primal growl rolling in her chest.

A bullet whizzed by her head and tore a hole in the blue metal at the end of the hallway. Another bullet was deflected with one of her vectors and careened wildly into the ceiling. Sparks showered her slight form that was beginning to resemble an engine of horror. Her features contorted and pulled back into a crazed snarl of bitter rage while her vectors coiled and flailed. The men were beginning to sweat underneath the masks. They had been told to check their fire. No one was going to open into automatic fire. That was the order. That was the order that they would follow. No matter what.

Mariah was gaining. Soon she would be in range and their new equipment would count for nothing against her fury. Like a trapped animal, Mariah tore down the hallway. Moments of her life, real and imagined played behind her eyes. Everything that she lost and everything she had, that they couldn't touch. She had been happy once. It was outside of this place where she had been happy but that happiness had been born in her soul and they couldn't cut it out of her, or shock it out of her, or beat it out of her. The fury began to warp into something bordering on sublime ecstasy. She had her mother. She felt that she was near. She could feel her arms around her body like the warm summer breeze and hear her voice like when she used to sing to her at night. A vector, flowing like the smoky wraith of past wrongs shot forward, its target just within range…

A stray round ricocheted off one of Mariah's vectors and embedded itself into the dented, blood-smeared walls with a dissonant chirp. Then, it detonated.

The feeling was only like a ball of lead slamming into her side at first. A dull, ignorant thud that pressed deeper and deeper into her, cutting under her ribs, shifting her organs within her body. Then came the realization that she was no longer on the ground. What a feeling it was to fly, unencumbered by gravity. The feeling almost made her forget the growing, consuming pressure that kept pushing and growing in insistence. However, the feeling of surreal freedom began to burn and char with the blue, hot flame of trenchant gnawing pain that began to flower from the center of the initial site of pressure. Like a virus, this new ravenous feeling began to usurp the territory of its predecessor and, like a mad general, began to expand into the adjacent areas that the dull force had not yet even settled into.

Tears, like blood tinted crystals, began to travel down Mariah's cheeks. Without warning, her cheek made contact with something cold and implacable. The sensation, for but a moment, was cool. The feeling almost felt good in contrast to the inferno that surrounded her, that permeated her being, and the tempest that raged within her soul. But, like everything in her life, her temporary oasis transformed into an assault of pain. A crack resounded through her head, a concussive roar filled her ears as her skull slammed into the cold, unyielding wall. Gravity resumed its duties and dragged her broken frame to the ground.

Looking down, she saw a pool of blood start to grow around her. _Is this what mama felt?_ she wondered as the tide of red expanded around her. Her side hurt. Her head hurt. She tried to close her mouth but all she received was a crashing tidal wave of agony from a shattered jaw. She looked down to see a string of saliva hanging loosely from her gaping mouth. Even to grimace, to show any sign of her agony, hurt her cracked lips and crushed jaw. The faceless, soulless slave masters had even taken her ability to express emotion, to let them know her pain; not that they cared. Her hand reached around to her side and she realized with all the force of a hundred of the explosive rounds that did this to her just where this was going to end. Like a blunted blade that just kept digging and penetrating, the pain roared, startling the pitiful girl. Eyes brimming with tears registered the sight of her hand, small and delicate, coated in thick red liquid like a velvet glove.

Looking up at those who had done this to her, she shrunk back in abject terror. Breaths came in short, torturous pulls as her fractured ribs grated their broken ends together and bone splinters pressed into swollen flesh. The sight of the wall of black began to take on forms alien to reality, to sanity. Like shadows, they seemed to grow, to loose definition and form. The vague, amorphous outlines grew appendages and ganglia that searched in frenetic starts for something, something to consume, to destroy. So black, so devoid of anything resembling humanity! It was almost like their perversity had gained so much power that it had simply fallen out of, broken through the universe, leaving a void as the signal of a total absence of being.

"Right between the eyes, soldier."

"Sir, yes sir. Right between the eyes."

The one kind thing that they had ever offered her. Mariah's world went black. Though it had been black the moment the hulking beasts of men took her mother from her and then took what was left of her life.

* * *

Part II: Trapped Ambivalence

Fridays never come soon enough. So much happens during the week to break a person; though, not just through bodily exhaustion but through monotony's unremitting parade of familiar images, situations, and stresses. The full extent of the week's degradation was evident in Kouta as he lay back in the red chair by the closed sliding door. He had found and installed a new pane to replace the one Keade had mauled her hand on. Despite enduring another trying week, Kouta, his eyes exploring the back of his eyelids, looked better than he had in a long time. His once hollowed cheeks had grown fuller, more exuberant in color. The dark circles under his eyes lost the appearance of flesh barely having the will or strength to hold itself to the underlying bone.

Outside, the wind pressed against the sliding door, testing its endurance. It wanted to be with warmth and life again. The autumn had stolen its reserves of vivacity, leaving it clawing at the door, hoping to be accepted. Still Kouta remained, unflinching on the chair, his head back and his mind wandering. So many memories unlocked and with them, the gaping chasm of his disunity. From happy child, he leaped to the innocent love of a girl with horns who chose to leave him a fractured, bleeding being, then finally to finding some sort of redemption in the most unlikely of places. He felt lost in his life but, for once, he thought that maybe it was ok to meander the unknown woods. For once the trees rose not as obtuse, oppressive monoliths but as living things full of potential to grow more beautiful with time. Besides, he was not alone in the eldritch forest and that made all the difference to him. As the wind began to grow accustomed to the lonely fact that it was going to be denied hope of regaining the tenderness of warmth and began its diminuendo, Kouta's consciousness started to settle into the placid sway of sleep.

There was something, indistinct, inaudible almost, beyond the veil that sleep had placed to ensnare Kouta's being. So fragile, but like the gossamer web of a spider, the snare held Kouta tightly. Panic began to flow through Kouta's veins as he realized that he was having another one of those half-awake-half-asleep moments that plagued his nights. He had never told anyone about these episodes. Never told Yuka the way he'd awake like piston, shooting up in bed, with beads of cold sweat clinging parasitically to his body. He wanted to open his eyes and get up and find the source of the indistinct noise. He thought, he was quite sure, that the sound was from outside. The hollow, pat of bare feet on the wooden walk-way outside. He wanted to get up but he could feel the greedy, fumbling hands of sleep trying to drag him back down to oblivion. Too much did this feeling remind him of another time. Far too much could he feel the wheels of forces beyond his control start to pull him under and crush him while he impotently tried to crawl away. His muscles did not respond to his minds desperate pleas to struggle for escape. He could not move, paralyzed by the world around him, letting the bestial terror permeate and push through him like, like… VECTORS!

* * *

Part III: Gilded Worlds of Night and Mind

The ground came up fast. Too fast to stop. _It can't be helped _thought Kouta detachedly as he waited for impact. He only had to wait a fraction of a second before the steadfast ground was pressing against his face and the reverberation of the fall flowed through his body like the vibration of a tightly wound chord. He quickly resumed his feet, hoping no one had heard him. He didn't want to explain or to let them know that he nightly fell prisoner to his own body. Sweat clung to his forehead despite the fact that the temperature was starting to drop outside and to draw out the warmth of the house as if it were a newly deceased body giving up its last claim to life. Kouta rubbed his eyes with the hope of dislodging the last traces of sleep that remained concealed there. Within his chest, Kouta's heart beat to a frenetic pace that hoped to outrun the residual feeling of helplessness. Slowly, the inertia began to fade, to relinquish its control of Kouta's limbs. His first few steps were tentative and unsure but he resumed his normal gait by the time he was within arms length of the door.

Kouta opened the door just enough to peer outside at first. The moon rose like an empress over the town, clothing the outline of everything within her purview in silver. The entire scene took on a spectral appearance, a fragile and crystalline form. Kouta held his breath for a moment, almost afraid that to exhale would lead the vision to fracture and fall away. Something ethereal swayed just out of the limited perspective the slightly opened door afforded. On a gentle breeze it rose and fell. He knew at once what he would find at the sight of the pink lock that floated like a feather on the current of air. He opened the sliding door further, revealing Keade. She sat, her arms folded around herself to ward off the increasingly covetous cold. Kouta could see that she too was entranced by the shimmering, silver gilded moon for her head was thrown back at an angle directed toward the luminous sphere. He didn't want to disturb her yet he felt like he wanted to share such a moment with her. He wanted to be with her below the silver orb and be bathed in its silver rain as well.

The chill was something welcomed by Keade. She had known only the stagnant, lifeless cold of the facility for so long that this new cold that moved and ebbed was something welcome. It made her realize how alive she was. The moon was so amazing to stare at. The sun's alter ego. Far kinder in Keade's eyes was she for she let you look right at her instead of scorning you with pain like the sun. She wanted to remember this, to keep it with her. She closed her eyes slowly, dreamily, and tried to see everything that had laid before her. The chimneys that rose like lances into the night sky's body, the silver wrapped houses that looked like sculptures of a silversmith, the clouds that floated listlessly by and occasionally occluded the moon; they were all there in the world behind her eyes.

Floating in a world apart from the world that had to be, Keade began to drift and fade. Before getting much farther down the valley of unconscious, she felt something that gently caught her and lifted her from blissful nothingness. Keade opened her eyes, then turned to see what she had hoped she would find the moment the feeling of a gentle hand fell on her shoulder.

* * *

Part IV: Wide Awake In a World That Sleeps

Kouta had approached her as quietly as he could. Sadly, a trespassing apprehension from his dream-world captivity made an unexpected and unwelcome appearance. The closer he drew to the huddled figure of the girl he loved, the more the feeling grew. He couldn't control its insidious progress and development and the shame that it brought with it. _How could I feel this? After everything she's gone through, after the loss I felt without her, and after finally finding her… how could I feel this _but the word wouldn't come. He wouldn't allow it to surface in his mind in connection with Keade.

Fighting the intensifying pangs, Kouta reached out. He needed to kill these screeching specters in his head. They had no right to exist in his mind, to spoil his happiness. All he needed was to find what was real. Keade was real to him, was genuine. The duality that was tearing him apart had to be silenced. He knelt beside her, letting his hand rest gently on her shoulder. As she turned to face him, Kouta berated himself for allowing his soul to harbor such feelings despite the fact that he had learned, much to his horror, that his mind was quite capable of engaging processes without his consent. Sometimes he still wondered how he could have fabricated memories to cover over the truth about his sister and father. All his fears, though, began to dissolve as he saw the easy smile on the serene face that turned to face him.

The moon illuminated Keade's face. Her skin reflected the moon's rays, and seemed almost to glow with ghostly iridescence. Her eyes sparkled in the pale light with a warmth that the warmest summer day could not aspire to deliver. Her full lips were curled into a gentle, welcoming smile. Kouta was a little startled to feel the chill of Keade's exposed shoulder and quickly offered to get her a blanket which Keade quietly declined. The two looked at each other for a moment, simply allowing simple smiles to linger upon their faces.

Everything seemed to scream that this was an illusion, that this wasn't a peace that could be maintained. Yet, the moon continued to let its liquid silver drip to earth and water the dreams of those who reclined in placid or turbulent sleep. But not for Kouta and Keade who had a reality that was finally better than any dream imaginable. To the two silhouetted figures, the veracity of the moment was given in each others' eyes and that was the only confirmation that they needed.

Their forms, against the moon's glow, merged together finally. Arms folded around each other's bodies, they kissed. Kouta, despite the chill air, was innervated with sudden heat the moment his lips met with Keade's. Every nerve in his body began to come alive as he felt her body pressed firmly against his. Back and forth, they exchanged kisses, barely taking time to breath as if they had discovered that air was no longer necessary in the presence of their burning passion. One of his hands lifted to stroke the hot cheek of the girl he held in his arms while the other pulled her tighter to himself. Keade put her head on Kouta's shoulder, snuggling in close with a little sigh. Following suit, Kouta put his face in the small arch of Keade's neck.

Their hearts continued to race in their chests, their breath, releasing small plumes of white steam in the dark night, cascaded through their lungs.

"Keade?" Kouta softly called.

"Mmmm?" was Keade's response that was half question and half purr.

"We haven't had much time to be together. Things have been so busy with college and, well, everything that's gone on around here recently." At that, Kouta averted his gaze, wondering if he had implied that she had caused trouble to them by being there. He looked back up, anxious about the look that he would see on Keade's perfect features. What he saw was like a ragged blade beginning the plunge towards his heart. With down cast eyes, she bit her lip as her chest swelled with a pained inspiration. The regret made him jump to prevent the blade from carving deeper.

"Keade, I didn't mean like that. Since you've been back, I've been happier than I thought I could be again." His blue eyes, full of sincerity searched her face for a response. "It's just new to have you around again and we're all adjusting to having another person living here. But I'm so happy to have to change again. Things weren't complete till you came back." The thoughts of being there, with one person always missing ricocheted around his heart, scraping at its walls, send waves of sadness through his soul.

Keade's eyes lifted and locked onto Kouta's. His pulse quickened just by looking into those ruby colored orbs that he knew had held so much sorrow yet were now so content. Kouta couldn't fit the facts together to make sense of it all. _Why did this have to happen to her? Why did everything lead to these circumstances? If she had just been a normal person and didn't have to suffer like she had, couldn't we still have met and fallen in love? _None of it seemed fair. None of it made sense. How could this have occurred to someone who had done nothing wrong? He loved her so much it sometimes hurt and in those moments all the stains of the past were resurrected. The ghouls of the decaying past clawed at him and tried to pry him apart again, fracture him so he couldn't feel or see the parts of his life that had hurt him the most. Yet all of it somehow made up what he had become. He couldn't forsake any of it. He needed the sickening truths to make him whole, to make the rest of his life feel real and not just one discordant phase after the other.

Right now, Kouta felt that he belonged. That everything came together and fit into an abstract form that maybe wasn't meant to be understood.

* * *

Part V: Irrefutable Addendum

"Anyways," Kouta resumed, "would you like to get out of the house for a while? Just you and me?"

The proposition seemed almost strange at first. To leave the house, to venture back out into the world, seemed almost frightening. The last time they had been together, things had gone so horridly wrong. _Things went so horribly, horribly wrong_ Keade's mind echoed as she visibly shuddered from the revolting images that her memory regurgitated.

Kouta observed the way Keade's form suddenly twitched, like a current had suddenly passed through her. As his eyes absorbed her, he could understand why she would begin to shiver. Only a thin nightgown separated her pale skin from the clawing cold. Almost as a reflex spurred by a chivalrous impulse, he put his arms around her shoulders and held her close to him, more than willing to give up some of his own warmth so that she could be more content. For the first time, Kouta realized how delicate she really was. Her shoulders that rose and fell with each breath, the gentle fingers that rested in Kouta's palm, the long lashes that flickered as she looked up at him. She seemed so brittle as she rested against him. Gently, with meticulous care, Kouta leaned in and kissed Keade's forehead.

"So, do you want to?"

Keade thought another moment. The thought of getting to be normal and go out with a person she cared for beckoned her in spite of the apprehensions that hung like smoke.

"Where do you plan on taking me?" she quipped.

Kouta already knew. He wanted to revisit the place where they had spent an entire day. He desperately wanted to have the day close as it should have those many years ago. The past could never change but this could serve as an addendum to errors that had cost lives and years of happiness.

"We could go to the zoo, like when we were young."

The hammer that was Kouta's heart began to relax as a smile, tinged with traces of nostalgic hope and wilting regret glowed upon Keade's face.

* * *

VNV Nation, Track Farthest Star from the Album Judgement. 

Author's Note: Hi again. College just got out and the first thing I did... well, you're looking at it: ) It's been a while since I got to flap my creative wings so I hope that this turns out alright. As promised, I bring you more Kouta/Keade in this chapter and I promise yet more in the next chapter. Much more since the Mariah side story has reached its end. ; ( I hope it was a nice diversion to show that the company is still as evil and capable as ever. Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter and look forward to the next one which will be up by Tuesday night at the latest.


	9. Chapter 9: Living Redux

Hi all! I just thought I'd be nice an let you in on a little secret: whispers I don't own anything from the Elfen Lied manga or anime.

* * *

Part I: Distractions

"Dude, this is just getting ridiculous," said the exasperated soldier. He jerked his head back then restlessly rubbed his eyes with a stubby finger. That damned girl hadn't been sighted in all the time they'd been there. Not even a glimpse of her! He put his orbital against the soft rubber of the eye piece for a moment, scanned the street hoping that he had spoken too soon, then pulled away again with a disgusted grunt.

"Oi! Where's your head at?" he barked.

"Well, I could show you where my head would like to be at," the bearded soldier retorted, looking over his shoulder with a licentious leer.

"Oh really. Now there's some intelligence that I feel I am entitle to," said the first soldier, who started to walk over with his scope in hand.

"Need to know basis only, buddy," the bearded soldier said in a jocular nature.

"Then you need to know this: fuck off and lead me to the action." His smile began to broaden in anticipation of what he might get to see. There were times when observation duty was more like a prison sentence. Even if they saw this bitch, they wouldn't get to do anything about it. They would just have to report it. No combat, no bloodshed. He'd even welcome allowing her to walk away just as long as he got to get off this worthless, windy, square of a rooftop.

"So, where do I point this thing?" he enquired. Flashes of a person being beaten down or maybe a rape darted through his mind, making his heart beat to a quicker tempo. The morality of what he was doing didn't bother him. Actually, he never stopped to consider it. He felt detached from this point of view and the problems that occurred around him were not of his concern. They were just snippets of entertainment to make the time pass a little more quickly, make this assignment a little more interesting. When his partner directed and focused his scope with a few swift circular wrist motions, he put his eye to the piece, though with a little more vigor this time. He found himself looking through the window of a neighboring building. There stood a man with a woman pinned between him and the wall. Her thighs folded around him as he…

"This is much more interesting indeed my partner in crime," said the first soldier. His bodily process started to stir mischievously, sending hormones darting wildly about his blood stream. A wolfish grin split his face as he continued to dedicate all his attention to the peep show playing out through his telescopic lens.

* * *

Part II: Transit Trip-Ups

Keade stood a few feet away from Kouta who was sitting on a bench. When Keade had been approaching the bus stop, she had feared that there would be a crowd there. Despite the absence of the horns, she still felt different, could feel other people picking up on her, "otherness." It made her feel so isolated, so threatened. At moments like those, she wished she could simply fold into herself so she could escape the feeling of people's stares boring into her like white hot needles.

Kouta watched Keade as she read a bus schedule. The sun was not following its own schedule in blatant defiance; for, it persisted in depositing warmth upon the life forms that scurried about the planet. Kouta was one appreciative life form right now as he sat back and let the sun's rays dance over his face. A slow, gentle wave of contentment overcame him as he sat there in the sparkling sunlight, his mind clear for the moment of dissonant voices. The sound of cars zooming by, transporting their occupants to the next part of their life, fused together and sounded somewhat akin to a stream. The illusion was broken by the screech of brakes that strained against the accumulated momentum of a bus trying to come to a stop.

Kouta rose up to find Keade already beside him. He signaled for her to go ahead of him onto the bus. As she began to walk down the narrow aisle, he handed the bus driver the necessary amount of money then went to follow the flowing pink hair that traveled, almost by instinct, to the back of the bus. The regret followed Kouta down the aisle, weighing down on him with more insistence with each step like the accumulated regret of a lifetime. From here he could see the way she walked with down turned face to avoid having to face the few other people that were seated inside the metal and glass hull. He quickly covered the distance that lay between him and Keade so that he could put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. He felt her tense up as she turned to face him. Through her eyes, Kouta saw a world of patient apprehension that slowly boiled like acid, eroding her resolve.

The pained squeak of the hydraulic doors signaled that it would be a good idea to hold on to something yet neither one had the time to do so. The floor jerked forward under their feet; but, they hadn't the time to compensate for the fact that what they stood on was moving while they had not yet gained enough momentum to travel with it. Keade's mind registered feeling of a weight upon her when she finally hit the ground. Cautiously, she opened one of her eyes and saw a much abashed Kouta looking down at her. His lips flapped in ridiculous attempts to apologize. Like dye in a pool of water, blush spread over his cheeks and down his neck. Keade's mouth hung open a bit in surprise from the position they had landed themselves in.

"Um," Keade began in an uncertain tone, "do you want to stay here till we get to the zoo?"

The question startled the already flustered Kouta into applying his energy from the lost attempt to form words to getting up, then extending a hand into which Keade placed hers. Before she turned to make it the rest of the way to the last row of seats, Kouta managed to see a deepening patch of blush on Keade's pale cheek. He didn't want to admit it to himself but he knew by the blood exploding through his veins that he liked that perspective of Keade. The way her fair fell in her face as he looked down at her gave features an innocent look. He knew that, despite everything that had happened to suggest the contrary, that that was her true nature. She was only a frightened, hurt girl whom the world had betrayed. _If only she never had to know the horrors she had seen. _He knew that he would gladly have taken all of her pains to himself if only he could spare her. If only there were a way to fix the shattered past and give her innocence a chance to be free.

* * *

Part III: Reflections of the Present

The trip lasted only an hour or so. Though, in truth, it had been a voyage that spanned years as they both looked out the window at things familiar and changed. The past laid like a film over the objects and places that blurred by outside like paint left in the rain to run. Kouta and Keade looked at the world fly by in torrents of color and distorted shapes. However, superimposed over everything, were their own reflections. In the glass, their transparent forms stared back at them. Though they may not have known it; seeing their familiars together, with Kouta placing his head on Keade's shoulder, they

thought in unison how they fit together so well. The ragged patchwork of their lives made them stand apart from everyone else. Only for one another could they fit.

The bus finally pulled to a jarring stop. People bustled busily outside, dragging giddy children and pushing groggily flailing babies in prams. Keade had only seen this many people gathered together in one other place, a place she would rather not think about. She looked over at Kouta who offered a little smile.

Kouta stood up and allowed Keade to proceed in front of him. The sight of the zoo, for the most part unchanged, caused Kouta to recoil a little. It was just a sense of squirming beneath his skin, almost as if his skin were an article of clothing in which he had room to slide around in. He knew how things had ended the last time, knew the way things shattered into little piece that crawled under the skin and festered. He swallowed hard and let the feeling roll over him like a clash of thunder. He wasn't going to bring up anything that would upset Keade. He wanted her to smile. He wanted to give her a day where she could maybe escape, maybe escape and liberate him as well.

* * *

Part IV: Waking and Wandering Words

The sun continued to cut through the thickening atmosphere. The breeze signaled that soon the skies would scab over and allow no more light, no more warmth. Gooseflesh crawled serpentine up Keade's arm. As if it were a contagion, the small bumps appeared on Kouta's arm as well, making his hair rise like little soldiers called to attention. Rising as well were his spirits. He loved the zoo. After regaining his memory, he had realized what it was that had drawn him into pursuing a job that would have him working in these surrounding. It was that one day with Keade that, like a light that penetrates through the screen of his amnesia, had made aware of how he could still be capable of happiness.

The crowd, due to the fact that it was a weekend, was crawling and moving like one, large undulating life form as they all tried to get to the booth to get tickets. Kouta grabbed Keade's hand securely, then, with boyish mischief in his voice said, "Hold on and follow me."

Before Keade could respond, Kouta had assumed a crouch and had brought her with him. Immediately, she knew what the plan was and smiled as well. They rushed, bumping into people and avoiding being stepped on, through what looked, from their perspective, to be a constantly swaying and evolving forest. Something seemed to be more alive in Kouta. He didn't know what but he was sure it was there. Something seemed to be unwinding slowly or perhaps emerging. Even that was not quite right. It was more like something was reassembling from the wreckage that still littered his mind whether he acknowledged it or not. At once familiar and at the same time a questionable apparition, the nebulous being brought back memories, memories that were actually welcome. The bearer of these precious relics seemed so small, so delicate yet held so much power.

The forest of shifting trunks started to condense. But the progress they had made had put them only a few rows from the ticket booth. From here, they could see the sales person frantically exchanging money for tickets, getting change, and answering questions. Kouta figured she was probably a high school kid looking for an easy way to make some money. She probably never saw this coming. Keade was glad she didn't have her job. She knew she didn't have the patience for such a thing. She also was a bit surprised by Kouta's methods since he always seemed to be so reserved.

"Wow. I didn't see you being the type to pull something like that," she mused.

"I don't know. I just sort of feelgood today. Like," he wasn't sure how to put it, wasn't sure what words covered it since the feeling seemed to puncture the boundaries of whatever word his mind could produce. His eyes swiveled back and forth as if he half expected the word he was seeking would materialize in some obscure place just out of his range vision and he would miss it. He finally resolved to just let it hang with a helpless shrug.

Keade smiled. She wasn't sure what Kouta was feeling but it made him happy and she hoped that it would continue. On his face she could see, just below the surface, the smile of that boy who, in the dark forest, had been kind to her.

Kouta turned to observe how many more people were in front of them and was stunned to see that there were only two families before they could get into the zoo. Now one more. The next family stood in front of the booth. It looked like any normal family. The father handed the huffing girl in the booth the needed money while his wife was cradling a pink, wide eyed baby. Kouta averted his gaze for a moment, just long enough for echoes of the past to weaken and disappear, just enough time for the image of his own family to fade.

* * *

Part V: Admittedly Hopeful

"Sir, other people would like to get their tickets!" the girl from the booth called with force derived more from stress than from actual venom.

Kouta, startled, fumbled out his wallet from its resting place in his pocket. Adeptly, his fingers wrested the money out then handed it to the girl who, in return, hastily flung back their tickets. Kouta handed one to Keade and they entered the sprawling gauntlet of the zoo.

They stood for a moment, staring blankly at the crowd that swarmed around them. It were as though there was more to fear from a stampede of humans than any of the animals in their enclosures. Mirrored in dual microcosms was a stampede of a different kind. A stampede, a riot of memories and feelings. Different perspectives retained through the years of cold, turgid distance began to erupt like magma sealed beneath the gray, crust of time. Kouta's mind replayed images of Keade, so young so excited. _She was so innocent_ he thought as pictures and moments of the past, like endorphins filled his mind. As kind as these vestiges of the past were, Kouta returned to the present. The present contained one of the treasures of the past, one of the few to be salvaged from the crushing, blind rage of past events that had left scars that would never fade.

Kouta shuffled a little so that he was looking at the one girl he'd ever felt this way for. Her placid face stared out at the scene. Her full lips parted slightly in a smile. For a moment, a flash of that small girl glinted throughout Keade's form. To think that this was possible, that he could have been reunited with her gave Kouta a rush, a triumphant surge of emotions that barreled forth from his chest and innervated his being.

Keade, through the phantasms of memory, could feel a familiar pair of blue eyes upon her. She turned her head to those blue eyes set in a kind face that smiled gently at her. Gently, Kouta let the back of his fingers slide down Keade's lily hued check. As he did so, Keade leaned into his hand by tilting her head a little more.

"Where do you wanna go first?" asked Kouta. Keade thought a moment. Thinking back to the time they had come before, she looked for something that had stood out for her. Finally, an enthusiastic smile crossed her face.

"Do they still have those big, gray, loud things?"

* * *

Part VI: The Living Extinct

Kouta giggled at her response. Putting his arm around her shoulders, he led her to the elephant pen. On the way, he explained what he knew about elephants and Keade listened, missing clips and phrases that were lost to the competing noises of squealing children and noisy groups of teens. It wasn't so much what he was saying that was of value to Keade, but that he was saying it to her that made her so content.

Kouta stood back a moment and watched as Keade stood wide eyed at the sight of the elephants. She looked over at him, her face radiating the wonder that tumbled through her mind at the size of the gray beasts. She looked over to Kouta, searching his face to see his response, wondering is she were the only one who had seen an elephant for only the second time in her life. Kouta's smile doubled to see Keade so happy, so filled with life. He briskly walked up behind her and enfolded her within his arms. She arched her neck so she could look at him.

"They look just as big as I remember," she said with a giggle that added a lightness to her voice.

Kouta nodded with a little hum of approval. "No matter how many times I see them they still amaze me," Kouta said in a low, introspective voice.

"Why's that?" she enquired.

"They are so powerful. I'm sure they could break out if they want to. But they choose not to hurt anyone. I just always wondered what it was that kept them here. That and they're so rare now. Some day, people may never get to see these creatures."

"I guess we have something in common," Keade, with as much control as she could retain, replied.

Kouta looked down, surprised at what he had just heard her say. He wasn't sure what reaction he should have to that comment. He wasn't entirely sure of what she meant.

She slipped out from his embrace and wandered over to the less crowded giraffe paddock and gracefully leaned against the rail to the enclosure. Kouta, with a caution he hoped would prevent an emotional scar from reopening, walked over beside her and leaned on the rail as well, looking into Keade's face with concern.

"What did you mean by that?" he asked in a hushed voice. Keade took a deep breath, let the words form themselves in her mind, then elucidated her point.

"I don't see how this can continue. There's no way this world is going to allow something like me to continue to exist. You're one of the," she paused and considered the implications of her next words before she continued, "lucky ones who will get to see a real, live," she leaned in close to his ear and whispered that classification that had brought her so much pain.

Kouta struggled to contain his sorrow, his surprise, and his anger. _How could she say that to me? I, who loves her than she could ever know, and she says something like that! _"

"Why," his composure had sprung a leak and traces of the acrid bitterness were beginning to seep through, "would you say a thing like that? Why would you think that? Why would you say something like to me?"

"I can't shake the feeling," her jaw clenched with the thought of the reality that her words implied, "that this isn't going to last. Kouta, I've never been so happy as when I've been with you. My little dream." Her hand cupped the side of Kouta's face, slowly slipping down to rest over his heart. "Kouta, I can't make myself believe that, with all of my past, I can be happy. It's like I'm just not meant to be happy for long and, I don't want to be without you again Kouta."

Kouta's expression softened as he realized the motivation for her shocking statement that ran like rusted blades through his heart. He didn't know what to promise. He didn't, couldn't, believe that anything more could happen; nevertheless, so much had happened to suggest that things could always get worse. Whatever was to come, he wasn't going to loose her. He took her hands in his, hoping that this bond would make his words ring clearer.

"Keade, I would not let anyone hurt you again. I'll never let you be taken away again. Keade, we're in this together from now on. I promise you with everything I have."

His boyish hope never changed. His idealism had survived everything thrown at it, survived so many tremors and earthquakes and eruptions. His sincerity, his genuine love nearly made Keade light headed with appreciation for his role in her life.

Kouta, after all he had lost, knew that to loose any more of the people that he loved would send him careening off a precipice into a nightmare that consumed his world. Never would he allow the people he cared for to be hurt again. He wouldn't stand for it! The people he loved didn't deserve the fates that they were given, didn't deserve the years spent in pain. He would do everything necessary to protect the people he most cared about.

"My little dream…" she breathed, her eyes locked onto his, their hopes fused into one long prayer that this didn't have to end.

* * *

Part VII: Only Closing Time for the Day

The rest of the day carried on, giving good trust to Kouta's vow that there would be no more need to suffer. Keade eagerly bounced from one exhibit to the next. Her energy placed Kouta in a place that he could visit in his memories, where the flesh of life had yet to be marred. She had loved the tigers though she had confessed to Kouta that she had felt pity for the way they had to pace back and forth just to keep itself amused. At the moment she said that, she had felt tighten his arm around her. It was like an instinct for him to try to lift her up at the slightest sign of trouble: those black holes that randomly popped up in her soul to suck her light away and leave her plunged in darkness again.

By the time they had visited every enclosure in the zoo, the sun had begun to loose its strength, limply falling out of the sky. Its vermillion light donated an artificial vivacity to the people that had started their exodus from the zoo. Quietly, two young people situated apart from the crowd sat elbow to elbow on a bench, each eating a snow cone. The girl's pink hair had taken on the appearance of a complacent flame that lazily flowed down her back. The boy, however, appeared to be in a perpetual blush that rouged his entire face but most of all gave his cheeks a profusion of lively crimson.

Like children, they sat and contentedly ate. Every so often, though, the boy would look over at the fiery haired girl, searching her face. As soon as his eyes played over her shapely visage, they went back down to look at the melting snow cone.

"Is yours good?" asked the boy simply.

"Mm-hm," said the girl with emphasis. "Yours?" she returned.

"Want to try some?" he placed it in front of her. Without hesitating, she took a bite out of it. Instantaneously, she cringed and gripped her head. Little yelps popped out of her down-turned mouth.

Kouta laughed, bending over and clutching his side. The past world melted with the sun, allowing living colors to bleed through. The colors from the past, like an impressionist's painting, made the everything flow in motion, their colors waving and mingling to create something whole and complete.

"What, exactly, is so funny?" Keade asked, feigning irreverence.

"You practically tried to bite the thing in half and then you get slapped with a brain freeze!" He continued to spasm as Keade sat patiently and watched. When Kouta had regained control and was left only with a big grin on his face, Keade voiced her idea for restitution.

As with the rest of the day, what they found at the small creek was a mixture of the old and new, a continuum from what they had know to what was there in the present. The surrounding trees created a private shoreline, a beach that only they knew about. The rocks crunched underfoot as they approached the flowing water. The river itself was the most noticeable difference in the scene. When they were young, it barely reached their knees, but now, despite how much they had grown, it now reached fully to their knees.

Kouta turned to see how far the sun had set. He knew that they would have to be getting back soon if they hoped to catch a bus. The water grasped at their clothes as it slipped unhurriedly by. Kouta could remember this too now but further reminiscence were temporarily offset by Keade's calling his name.

Kouta turned just in time to get a face full of the clear water that was flowing around them. He let out a surprised wail as his hands flew up to guard his already wet face from another little wall of water he saw coming at him.

"How's that for brain-freeze?" called Keade with triumphant glee.

Diving out of the way, both hands flailing, Kouta scooped up as much water as he could, sending a torrent towards the now yelling Keade. The cold water soaked through their clothes, reaching their skin. Doing so, it began to steal the accumulated warmth from their excitement. Their clothes, like second skins clung covetously to them. Finally, they could not ignore the compulsions of their bodies to escape from the leeching water and they made their way to the shore.

* * *

Part VIII: Final Bridge

The sun was throwing elongated shadows of all it touched upon the ground like ink stains. Even the shadows of the two who had just emerged from the water were now warped into horizontal monoliths that ran across the stony bank of the river. The sun now was represented by a red dome that was gently settling behind the crest of the tree-line, a giant reclining on a bed of green. Kouta knew they couldn't go anywhere like this, water still running from their spongy clothing while he simultaneously recognized that they were not going to dry too quickly while still clinging to their own wet bodies. The thought of what that meant made him start to regain some of that lost heat as his heart began to explode with anxiety. He turned on his heals away from Keade to hide the crimson that was invading his cheeks. He wasn't sure what to do. His mind raced as his heart raced in a vivacious tumult at the thought of being alone with a beautiful girl… while they were both naked. His mind contorted as fear began to make its way through his body. His chest quivered with each breath, while his knees felt as though they were swaying. He finally resolved to handle this matter with maturity. _I can handle this. I'm an adult. So what if she's _he turned around in time to see her remove the last article of clothing from her body. He realized that he was not as well equipped as he had thought to deal with this. Though her hair obscured most of her, Kouta could see enough of her curves to know that his system was beginning to run into overdrive.

"What?" asked Keade, unaffected by her condition. Clothes were a luxury in her view. She had been deprived of them for so long that she was just as comfortable in her skin as in any further covering. "Those aren't going to dry if you leave those on," she teased, knowing how much clothes meant to the rest of humanity.

Kouta stuttered a moment, managing only as much as a hasty, unsteady, "Yeah." Keade sat down in an area that wasn't littered with stones facing away from the blushing boy who was less than deftly unbuttoning his shirt. Keade lifted a hand to her face to rub her eyes while she let a smile play over her face at the thought of how shy he still was.

Kouta, still wearing his crimson like a mask, settled down behind Keade with his back to hers. For a moment they sat there, not saying anything. Kouta took in a deep breath of the night tinged air, letting its calm fill his lungs then began, "Keade, did you enjoy the day?"

"I did. This is one of the best days I've ever gotten. Thank you Kouta," she got on her knees so she could turn and place her head on Kouta's shoulder. In stead of cringing from the shame he felt of his exposed body, he rose as well and stared back into her eyes.

The gravity of emotion led their lips together, like orbiting bodies. He clutched her to him, her skin smooth against him, pulled tight over muscles that had developed from the years of tension and fighting. Keade pressed her only love to her, felt his fingers dancing up her back, felt the shiver run through her.

Kouta finally found that, in her arms, there couldn't be a word for what he had felt that day. What was there was the totality of everything he had lived, everything he wanted to live. Everything he wanted to share with her. It was more than any word could describe, a novel recount. Like the leaves that blow on the wind, it descended on him, like the light through the gloom of sleep it penetrated, like the horizon, it extended further than he could imagine.

"Keade, I love you."

It traveled distances irreconcilable to deliver that one message to the girl that he held in his arms.

* * *

Author's Note: Hello all. I wanted to get this one up by tonight in my last chapter and, what do ya know, I made the deadline! Wow. So, I hope that you enjoyed the last chapter and I hope that you enjoy this one too. I really wanted to get back to the Kouta/Keade dynamic since they are the central focus officially I think. But anyways, I know this chapter is quite long and if you have read this far, then I salute you! The reason i made it this long is that tomorrow I'm off to Italy for two weeks and will thus not get to update for that time. So, I really hope you like it. I'm trying to make Kouta an interesting psyche as well and really represent their emotions and evolutions as faithfully as possible. Well, I'll cut of this wordy explanation with the wish that you enjoy this chapter and the request that you let me know if there's any way you think I can make it a more enjoyable read. : ) 


	10. Chapter 10: Roses Before the Blade

Hello. I'm back with more and what I bring you is still only my own material since I am not in any way affiliated with this awesome manga or anime.I don't own anything.

* * *

Part I: The Alternative Pains

The adrenaline fueled anxiety tore at the lining of Yuka's heart. Kouta and Keade had not returned all night. A cyclone of thoughts sent her mind into a sprawling disorder of images of death, capture, torture, God only knew what. _Where are they? Please let them be alright!_ she pleaded to the gods of the cosmos who seemed to always be conspicuously absent when needed. She knew that, even though Keade had escaped being recaptured by the shadowy fiends of a corporation whose exact nature she could only guess at, there were still people out there who wanted her for whatever reason. The past events, the shadows of violence seemed to suck the vivacity from the autumnal morning. The scarlet orb of the sun was oddly muted by the pall that hung over Yuka's spirit.

However fear served as a crust that concealed an emotion that had, over time, become a fossil. Preserved in all its raged edges, its nagging red color still vibrant and pulsating; the vestigial creature reared its hungry skull to devour and tear at Yuka's heart. _Maybe it's nothing. Maybe they stayed out so they could…_

Mayu and Nana watched as the muscles that tightened like over-strained chords under Yuka's pale skin loose their resolve and relax. They both thought that perhaps she was taking heart, that she would find a way to reinforce her courage; however, the slackened muscles betrayed not tranquility but defeat. Silently, the two younger girls looked at each other with sidelong glances. Their eyes met and shared an unspoken dialogue of sympathy. The time spent at the inn had created an intricate quit of relationships. However, the design did not allow for the piece representing Kouta to be shared in that one way that both Keade and Yuka longed to have. Innocent eyes, catching the nascent light, reflected back and forth loyal sentiments of sympathy and concern; nevertheless, both girls knew that Keade and Kouta just fit, were complementary of one another. Still, neither one liked to see Yuka, who had been like a mother and big sister to them both, feeling so broken. If Yuka had known the truth of what transpired that night, it would be difficult to tell whether she would be more relieved or shattered in just a different way.

* * *

Part II: Recolections of a Different You

An azure eye, with much difficulty, opened to receive the light offered by the burgeoning sun. The stream that joyously burbled by reflected the clean, white light like a million dancing crystal shards. The soft verdure of the surrounding forest gently seeped into Kouta's sleep bewitched eyes. Browns, greens, and emerald brushed by one another, caressed, and rustled in the somnambulist morning breeze. The night had been uncharacteristically warm; providing just enough warmth to coagulate the will of the two companions to the point at which they resigned themselves to sleeping beneath the downy, pin-hole quilt of the sky. Softer still was the pale exposed skin of Keade's body that pressed against his own, the feeling of her hand in his, the ebbing of her breasts against him as she breathed the patient dream air of sleep.

Kouta thought back to last night. He could see her curves in the surrendering sun cast shadows over her body, then the silver radiance of her skin in the moonlight that had gradually forced the bluffing sun into submission. He had been surprised by the way the situation had developed. Usually, had a situation like that happened before, he would have become hopelessly flustered as his body went into an inappropriate autopilot. But, he didn't get the, "perverted feeling," that usually drove him to choosing some actions he knew were not representative of the type of person he was nor the man he wanted to be. Instead of wild, groping passion, he had simply held her. Held her tighten than he had ever held onto anything, tighter than he held his own life. They had simply fallen asleep in each other's arms, lulled into the darkness by the sound of each other's breathing.

* * *

Part III: Waking Up to An Ending Dream

Carefully, Kouta brushed a lock of ruby red hair out of Keade's face, being careful not to wake her. He smiled down at her placid face, listening to the echoes of feelings he had felt for her when they were children resound around his heart, experiencing each one as if it were entirely new to him. He wanted to dare further, to lean over, to kiss her full, pouting lips but he didn't want to displace her from her well deserved repose. Instead, he settled for gently whispering, "I've loved you since I met you." He inhaled the crisp air that seemed to ignite in his lungs. "I'll love you forever."

Like a hair-trigger going off at the provocation of a breath, Keade's scarlet eyes fluttered open. Her fiery soul peered out from beneath graceful lashes that repetitiously attempted to swipe away the sleep that obscured the view of the blue-eyed boy who looked down at her. He looked startled to her. She wasn't quite sure if his shock emanated from her sudden spring to consciousness or the thought that she had heard him cooing to her. His blue eyes gradually lost their over-stretched, startled expression and settled into a relaxed, congenial state that embellished the loving smile that softened his face. "I thought you were sleeping."

She grinned an easy grin as a small shiver wrung her muscles. The warmth of the previous day was already loosing momentum. Again, the sun was bluffing, making a spectacle of itself, hoping no one would notice that it could not provide the warmth that its light implied. Now, the cold was burrowing into Keade but she suppressed any further spasms in her muscles and continued, "I was just waiting for something to happen."

Kouta exhaled with amusement. "You looked like you were sleeping."

"Haven't you ever heard that looks can be deceiving?" she retorted.

"So are you really happy to see me or am I just being deceived by looks again?" Kouta teased back.

Keade pulled Kouta to her with a tenderness that sent quivering sensations through their nerves like electricity. For a while longer they stayed, pressed against one another's beating heart, until Kouta finally realized that they couldn't stay here all day and, with a reluctance that made every word border on retraction, told Keade that they should head home.

She knew that they couldn't stay there, together, forever. But, she wouldn't mind trying. She had felt so good, so content and warm in her Little Dream's arms as he held her close to himself. She let out a little whine to which Kouta diverted his gaze in recognition. In fact it was more than recognition. It was a confession that he himself would have liked to have laid there with her and continue holding her and feeling her within his embrace. In spite of all their hopes, time and responsibility beckoned them out of this oasis of peace, of deep and sincere love.

Kouta helped Keade to her feet and they threw on their clothes, armor to keep the cold from stealing the precious warmth they had shared. Kouta, despite the absence of the, "perverted feeling," found himself stealing covert glances at Keade's body which was disappearing like a puzzle in reverse under her clothing. His eyes, each time he managed to avert them, would be fixed on Keade's flowing form. What Kouta did not expect was that he would occasionally catch the eye of Keade who had herself been making sidelong passes with her eyes over her love's rapidly concealed form.

* * *

Part IV: Past to Future. Backwards, Forwards, Onwards.

The bus ride back to the inn passed rather quickly. The two talked about the zoo but did not mention how they had passed the night for the bus was partially filled with people dedicated to their jobs to the point that they felt it would be a breach of duty to dedicate a day to themselves or their family.

"You know something Keade?" Kouta enquired when a pause developed in their conversation. "It seems like I've always wanted to be a veterinarian and work at a big zoo." This time, he paused. Keade wasn't exactly sure where he was going with this declaration of his intentions so she waited until his voice found the rest of the words. "I think that that one day always sort of stuck with me. I couldn't remember anything about it, but I always felt good when I was at the zoo." Keade's heart sank at the thought that she had been forgotten even by Kouta, that she had disappeared completely from the face of the earth, into the bowels of it, into an unfathomable purgatory. "I felt somehow that I was connected to you. It was wonderful to do it all over again, like before." Kouta smiled at the quixotic looking Keade and giggled. "I think I'm getting too sentimental, huh?"

She looked back at him, understanding exactly what he meant. "You know that before, when I was," she searched for the words but she knew that the reference wasn't lost on him as he gave a small, sloping nod; so she searched no further and went on. "Well, I always thought of that day. Actually, I thought of all those days. The day I first met you, and all the days you came back for me. I think that you were the only thing that kept me alive all this time" Diverting her eyes, the question, almost like it were waiting for such a lapse in her gaze, sprung from her mouth. "Did you really mean what you said earlier, that you loved me since you met me?"

Kouta did not doubt the veracity of his answer. He didn't need to develop or synthesize the response; it was inherent in his feelings for her. "I did. I know it probably didn't seem like it back then but I know that I felt something for you and I hoped that it would always be you." Telling Keade about his fledgling feelings for her made Kouta's heart giddily thud in his chest. Reminiscence, like an epinephrine-dopamine cocktail, made the world appear brighter to him than to anyone not imbued with this intoxicating sensation.

Keade unknowingly disrupted Kouta's internal reverie with the words, "I can't wait to see you get there, to your dream of being a vet. Then I'll get to say that I'm loved by the greatest vet in all of Kamakura." She grinned at her silliness, happy with the levity she could feel spreading over her like an old friend's embrace.

Kouta gleaned something deeper in the cute tease. She had made a recognition of a future. Not a future represented by an epitaph dedicated to some future doom that would rip them from each other but a future that was alive. He put his arm around her slight shoulders as the bus neared the stop that would lead them home. The wait wasn't long as the familiar stop began to materialize in the distance, drawing closer moment by moment.

Like awaking from a dream that would be worth living in, Kouta and Keade dragged themselves to get up, to get back to the world. This was it. The final stop, the end of the dream though they knew; but, they could dream again in due time. Kouta offered his hand to help Keade from the seat and she trudged down the aisle. The wind, no longer a longing caress, stung her cheeks as she stepped out of the bus…

* * *

Part V: Unknown Nightmares Yet to Come

…. And into the scope. The soldier, who sported a beard from a few days on the limb, jerked upright, away from the scope. It couldn't be! After all this time and the bitch just traipses off the bus one day like any _normal_ person. He pressed his eye back to the view finder, his pupil dilating to take in the picture of his ticket off this shitting roof. '_And what's this?' h_e mused to himself, seeing Kouta get off the bus after her, then take her hand. _'Does that kid not know what she is? Does he know and is he just a retard?' _his mental voice sneered like an asp.

"Oi!" the soldier called out to his comrade like a child just getting a new toy he looks forward to mutilating, "I just found our target and you won't believe what else. She brought her own bait."

* * *

Author's Notes: I hope that every liked this chapter. I really wanted Kouta and Keade to have some alone time without falling into the convention of the lemon/lime. What's more, I wanted to show that they had a love so intense that sex just didn't suffice. Well, enough with that and more about what you can expect next time. To put it bluntly: things are going to go straight to hell. I'll try to keep this in the teen rating category but things are going to get pretty bad. I'll see what I can do. Well, hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'll try to get the next one up soon. 


	11. Chapter 11: Digging a Pit

Hello all. This is a work of MY imagination and is thus not involved in the Elfel Lied universe depicted in the manga and anime.

* * *

Part I: Liquid Ice Stained Red

The azure vista stretched itself to meet the blue sky. If it were not for the gently shimmering waves, the person staring at the panoramic spectacle might not have been able to tell where the sea ended and where the sky began. Strangely, neither one mattered much to him as he stared out past them, through them. What he was seeing was infinitely more glorious to him and, in a way, it was also a work of nature; though, this would be nature under the cruel tutelage of human might.

He inhaled deeply, allowing the images to flicker, like snakes in their den, just beneath his eyeballs. The thought of the power he could attain filled him, made his obsidian heart pulse with brutish intensity. A small smile spread his thin, seemingly bloodless lips; however, he let the smile deteriorate into his characteristic scowl the moment he heard the doors to his vast chamber open with a rush, followed by the brisk walk of a soldier.

"Sir!" the Commander chimed, standing at attention. He waited until he was bid to talk. He may have been the head of the special operation squad that provided the muscle for the corporation but he still got his pay check from this man for whom he waited, like a patient school-child, to get permission to speak from. The man whom he stood before, when he did finally turn around, revealed his cold, disdainful eyes that the commander had been unfortunate enough to be the subject of a few times before. This was the first time he had come here of his own will however, the few other times, he had been summoned to present progress of training and such status quo related matters.

"What is it?" the icy, jagged voice enquired.

"Sir, this morning, in the Kamakura district, two of our surveillance specialists caught sight of the target, Lucy." Now, he knew he had to divulge an observation made that he wished he could simply erase, giving him an excuse to plead ignorance; nevertheless, he knew that if he did not tell him, this creature that paraded as a man would simply get the vignette through one of his many sources. It was as though he had a million flailing tentacles that collected information from him. The commander would put himself in a dangerous position if he were not forthright. "Also, they observed a young man accompanying the target whom they believe could be of use in luring her into our trap. The commander's stomach jerked within him. He hated to bring this young man into this. He didn't like civilian casualties. He just wanted the target, nothing more. No more blood shed than was necessary. But now, this young man would undoubtably be implicated. '_Will be required of me now?'_ the captain asked himself lugubriously.

"Good work, Captain Noriyasu," was all the intimidating man said. He didn't try to stop the smile that began to contort his face in horrifying ways.

* * *

Part II: Undercurrent of Emotion

Monday had crept up like an unwelcome guest. Sunday had passed in a blink; though the residents of the inn were sort of thankful for that. When Kouta and Keade had finally returned, the tension in the house threatened to make it explode, or perhaps, implode. The bonds between all three of them were pulling and wrenching but refusing to disengage, drawing them closer; however, the only thing being pulled together would achieve would be a conflict. Thankfully, the uninvited guest of Monday had ostentatiously taken over before anyone had a chance to do battle.

The morning had been quiet, without anyone doing much talking. No mention of emotion was made. A stranger from the outside peering in on this scene might think that the residents of the inn lacked the ability to express complex emotions. They made only the most perfunctory, superficial observations about anything. Each feared that to go deeper would lead to a subterranean honey comb of networks that would all inexorably lead to the burning core of the problem: Kouta and Keade were in love, leaving Yuka alone and dejected.

When it was time for Yuka and Kouta to go to school, muffled goodbyes floated diffidently over the expanse between the residents of the inn as Yuka walked out and Kouta followed, not sure what to do or say. He continued at a distance until the tension brought him up beside her. He stole a sidelong glance at her, looking to see what the expression on her face was. He feared what he would see hurt, outright pain but all he saw were down cast eyes that accented the phlegmatic line that her gentle lips formed across her face.

Kouta had no idea where to begin or even if he should begin. But, the silence between them was crushing Kouta's soul. He knew that she was hurt but it was like he was a doctor in a power outage: he knew there was pain and sadness, but unless he knew where it was, he could do nothing to ameliorate it. Finally, Kouta resolved to shine a narrow beam of light on the situation and see the extent of the damage.

"Yuka, why are you being so quiet?"

Kouta realized as the last syllable left his mouth that this was not a good question to ask. The patient that he was dealing with took him to be a combatant and was going to tear into him; however, in a way, Kouta was both the cause of the damage and the one who felt a need to heal it. But, he couldn't heal anyone as he himself began to accrue deep gashes, gifts from his own devices.

"Why am I so quite?" Yuka snarled like an animal caught in a trap trying to fend off the encroaching scavengers. "How could you even ask that? You go off with _her_," her arm shot out demonstratively, seeking to point to an absent Keade, "spend the entire night with _her_, and leave me… all alone." Like an animal trapped, its life oozing out, the world around it growing dim, she snarled at him; though, it was only a snarl in her head. To anyone else around her, it was a vulnerable whimper.

"Yuka, I… I'm," Kouta stammered, his heart driving him forward to heal this wound. But Yuka cut him off before he could continue.

"Kouta, I just," she began to break down like a dam. It all started with a few drops. But those few drops promised a deluge of tears. "I just wanted you to love me." Her voice revealed how close she was to a total collapse, to letting to go of the amassed dejection and loneliness. She began again, almost in a pleading tone, "Is it because I didn't give into you like she did? Maybe if I hadn't been such a prude… maybe you would have spent the night with me instead of her."

Kouta stood there, transfixed having finally realized the diagnosis he would be forced to recognize. He saw now. He saw how deep the wound went. It scraped at her capacity to trust him, it burned from the salty tears that futilely attempted to irrigate it, it festered with the raw desire for something that became less substantial with each passing day. He wasn't sure what to say. He knew he couldn't say that he would have changed anything; for, that just wasn't true. Everything that had happened, he would do again. He would fall in love with Keade again and, as much as it hurt him to know the effect it would have on Yuka, he would choose Keade. He couldn't help it.

"Yuka, I," he began, not knowing the rest of the sentence. The sentence lacked the momentum to keep itself going and plummeted into the growing chasm between them like an eagle dying in mid-flight. There was nothing he could think to say to her. He knew that there was no way to appease her except to give himself to her, a sacrifice to preserve her feelings. The cure, however, was worse than the disease.

"Yuka," he finally began after a yawning pause, "I'm sorry for the way you feel. I'm sorry you hurt so much." He paused to see how she was reacting but she simply kept sauntering forward, her eyes looking at the bone-white sidewalk beneath her feet. "I, I never wanted to hurt you. You're my best friend, you're my cousin. I care about you."

Like a coiled viper trying to defend itself, Yuka lashed out, each word like a fang delivering its deadly payload of venom, "You cared about my feelings? You were thinking about my feelings when you took her last night and slept with her? Kouta, I, I can't believe you could do that. How could you have sex with her, move so quickly with a girl you know so little yet abandon me, your cousin?"

"I never did that with her," Kouta shot back at her. He was shocked and angry that she could think he would do that; though, he did recognize his own propensity to be perverted. Kouta's anger was mitigated instantly when he saw the scorching red expanding over his cousin's pale skin. He watched as it transformed her face into a pitiful harlequin mask, only the rouge didn't run or smudge as the tears began to fall more insistently. The tears masked and distorted Yuka's view of the white van that was quickly closing on their position.

"Please don't hate me Yuka, please don't cry. I don't want you to be hurt." He reached for Yuka, trying to hold her. "I don't want to see you cry. You'll find someone else." He paused, "I promise." His arms began to encircle her and she didn't fight it. "You'll find someone better than me, someone who will love you better than I could."

The van's corpse-white door began to roll open like the lolling mouth of a hungry beast.

"But what if I never find that person?" she asked, her face pressed to her cousin's welcoming shoulder.

The van was just about to be upon them.

"Yuka, you will find someone that will love you and who will be there for you."

"What if I don't want anyone else but you?"

* * *

Part III: The Consuming

It was too quick to react. There wasn't a second in which to fight, to scream, to get any type of comprehension. The world was uprooted and cut off with the swish of a door and there was only the inside of a van lined with ski mask sporting soldiers and the dull feeling that something horrible was going on and that this was only the tip of it. Yuka was pulled from her cousin who was thrown between two soldiers who looked like mountainous book ends.

A soldier pushed her back to the van's sliding door, his gloved hand holding her shoulders like a vice. He leered menacingly at her and said in a voice like rocks grinding by one another, "You know what we want. The pink haired freak. Tell her to go the bridge by midnight or else," he turned to the two mountains of muscle and rage that sandwiched the helpless Kouta. One buried his fist in his stomach while the other yanked his head back by the hair and held a long, serrated combat knife to the grimacing boy's throat.

Yuka watched in horror as the knife tested the flesh. It pressed, then eased, then found just the right tension and dove. A thin trickle of blood wormed its way down his neck, getting lost in his collar, dying it in the customary colors of war.

The soldier holding Yuka turned back to her with a grin that reeked of evil. "I'd let you watch more," he said in a sinewy voice, "but I wouldn't want you to miss your stop!"

The van jerked viciously to a stop. Before it came fully to a rest, the door swung open and Yuka tumbled out with a little squeak of surprise. The squeak metamorphosed into a grisly whine of pain as her shoulder slammed into the curb. Dull reverberations of pain sluggishly radiated from her injured soldier but she didn't stop to inspect it or give it a second thought. Right now, Kouta needed help. She had to get home. She had to get home. She had to get…

* * *

Part IV: Structural Integrity

The commander was aroused from his stupor with a start by the frantic static the belched forth from the radio. The command room was bathed in a putrescent green from the screens that were decorated with scrolling text and numbers. Figures, logistics, coordinates each rolled down different screens like water. He reached for the receiver.

"This is Commander Noriyasu, what is your status?" The silence of the radio gaped towards an infinite abyss punctuated by static, like little bullet holes. The line sealed the holes and divots as a calm, satisfied voice spoke out of the nothingness.

"Sir, we have the bait and we are currently on route back to base."

"Roger that. We'll be awaiting your arrival," Commander Norisayu said flatly.

What else could he do? Was he supposed to be pleased that they managed to bring a civilian directly into the line of fire? Was he supposed to be happy that he was going to have another casualty on his hands? No. The commander was less than half hearted about this mission. To be quite honest, a lot in the past had slowly amalgamated into a bulbous tumor that was beginning to destroy him from the inside out. He had joined the armed forces, not as a means of satisfying a blood-lust, but to protect the life around him from that which would destroy it. However, what he had seen in that facility had made him question if he was truly on the right side. He hadn't seen heartless monsters who killed for no other reason than to see their victims twist and contort under their imposed tortures. What he saw was far worse. Those supposed monsters were the ones who were help helpless and suspended in a constant stasis of suffering.

The Commander only realized that he had been digging into the back of his hand with his nails when he felt them break the skin. The pain helped him clarify things. He was trained to kill and make sure that others were imbued with the ability to kill without being killed. He killed for a living but this was different. Something had to give in this twisted game. Something needed to happen. The commander shuddered, thinking that the catalyst he hoped for would most likely be a mixture of blood and gun powder.

* * *

Author's Note: Hello everyone. Just thought I'd let you in on the fact that this is coming to a close. Things are getting put into place and things are going to get a hell of a lot worse before they get better. I hope that Yuka fans will like the way I presented her since I didn't want to rely on her her as just a stock character driven by shallow jealousy. I hope that it will work out for those of you who want to see a Yuka that isn't always beating the hell out of Kouta. Well, hoped you enjoy this chapter. 


	12. Chapter 12: Battle Into Hell

Hello all. I still own nothing from the Elfen Lied series or universe. No characters or events are of my creation as far as the series proper. Sadly, I am in no way affiliated with the creators. Also, just so ou know, I did try to keep this to a teen rating, so if it's not as gory as it should be then I apologize.

* * *

Part I: Arrival in the Ante-Chamber of Hell

Things happened quickly from the time the van returned to the base camp that had been assembled on the bridge. The soldiers, all of whom had worn black face visors, had quickly escorted him into one of the moving bunkers that they had disguised as standard construction company trailers. Their tin exoskeletons reflected the light in caustic rays of scorching white while the wind began to pick up momentum. Kouta, before he was secured against a wall on the inside of the rectangular trailer got to se a semi-circle of similar tin coated rectangles. The one farthest from him caught his eye though. In front of it stood a squarely built man with slicked back steel gray hair. The man was talking with an arrogant air to what looked like a high ranking soldier. The soldier stood dutifully as the man in blue continued to talk, his facial expression transitioning between disdainful to threatening. This was the last thing he was privileged to see before the world was restricted to what amounted to a prison on wheels.

"Sir, I didn't expect you to be here. If I had know I would have had extra security put in place. Are you sure this is safe?" the commander asked though not honestly caring all that much about this creature's well being.

"Do you think I came unprepared, as you did?" he snorted. "No, I have my own precautions. Now, as to whether I should be here or not: I have made this company what it is, I have dealt with these monsters, I know the risks they pose. I especially know the risk this beast poses. Do not mock me by thinking I do not know how to handle these things." He stood there then, impassive, a rude gesture against nature, a smudge of gore and grease really.

"Sorry sir, just want to take every precaution," the commander tried to assure.

Snidely, the block of disdain added, "I'm sure you do."

* * *

Part II: The Obligations To Die

Keade turned pale; however, to say that the blood drained from her face wouldn't quite give the phenomenon justice. It was as though her very soul had been wrenched free of her body and thrown to Cerberus as a chew-toy.

Yuka sat breathless. She had just recounted the story of the van, of the masked men, of the ominous call to arms. Now she sat, as red as Keade was white. She held her arm now, realizing the pain that had started to set secure roots in her tissue. Her lungs burned, trying to secure enough oxygen for themselves. Her chest heaved, making her intercostals stretch and complain that the expansion the lungs desired, they could not provide.

Keade simply sat there. Every nightmare, rife with terrors both symbolic and as plain as day, tore a hole in the delicate fabric of reality and flooded into the waking world like a deluge of sewage. The lights dimmed and everything seemed to be covered by a fine layer of dust. Only, there was no dust, neither the light nor the sun had dimmed. What her eyes were recording was the pall of impending battle that cast a shade over everything, and the phantom ashes of burning funeral pyres from the future.

The two women looked at each other with expressions that would have made a stranger think they had just met each other. Blankly they stared ahead, each wading through images of the hell they expected to befall them. The worst possible scenario played out inside each of their heads and despite the difference in the minor details, they both saw Kouta's life cut short before the vicious machine that had roused itself into action from the pits of some perverse netherworld where life was a cheap commodity that could be harvested and discarded as needed.

Finally, Keade made the first attempt to cross the gulf that had amassed in the room. Her eyes slowly traced across the floor to where Mayu and Nana were sitting. They look so frightened she thought, her eyes traveling over the girls' hands that held on to each other, that tried to find some stability to the world in the existence of another human being.

"It's me they want, right?" Her lips twisted like snakes across her face as she asked the question to which she already held the answer branded upon her soul. Her eyes were drawn back to the two girls as she heard a small whimper call from outside of her field of vision. She saw that Nana had sunk her head into Mayu's shoulder a little deeper. The condemned girl's eyes slowly, weighed down by guilt traveled back towards Yuka whose face was still a desperate shade of vermillion not prompted by a need for oxygen but a need for a resolution, a need for assurance that everything was going to be alright.

"You said that if I went there tonight they would let Kouta go, right?" She was drawn away from the response as she heard a low sobs crawl from Nana's tightened chest that gave and heaved as though she were being asphyxiated by the vice-like gravity of the reality that Kouta's life was going to be ended unless Keade decided to kneel before the guillotine herself. She knew how her poor, fellow Diclonius felt but she wasn't going to cry, no not tears. This was a time for a war cry.

"Yuka!" Keade shouted, out of patience. "If I go there, then they'll let Kouta go, yes?" There was no mistaking that there was something spreading below the surface, like a pool of magma in a lava chamber. A familiar sensation of fire, of shrapnel, of blood coating her skin began to swell in her to the marshal beat of bodies hitting the ground.

"Y-yes," Yuka finally managed to stammer out. "Keade, they, they want to kill you." Something in her voice sounded like surprise, as if it were somehow strange that someone wanted to kill Keade and that she wasn't yet awake to that fact.

"If I don't go, then they kill Kouta." These final words echoed around the room like a sepulcher. They hung in the air like spider webs waiting patiently to trap any unsuspecting passersby and Keade had jumped directly into their grasp.

* * *

Part III: The Pall of Night Is But a Curtain to the Show

Night was not punctuated with street lights on the bridge. The two lane bridge stood mischievously, defiantly against the pockmarked night sky. A slice, like an incision inflicted by a steady, sadistic hand carved a crescent in the velvety curtain that was the night sky. Keade stood, now on the other side of the road block that had cut off traffic, looking at this one way street that led to an unpredictable future.

Gently, she balled her hands into a fist, feeling the muscles tense, felt the way the tendons picked up tension, starting in her finger tips then continuing in deliberate certainty up into her arm. She felt what it was like to feel her own body alive, unharmed, and comfortable. Then her mind switched over to the feeling, preserved as much as a purely illusionary cerebral record possibly could, of Kouta's hand in hers. She imagined the feeling of his flesh, the bone under the skin, the muscles and tendons that instructed his hand to close over hers, to bind to hers, to hold her securely, protectively.

And now, a second set of hands began to flex, to bend, to expand like the wings of a bird of prey around her. In the sparse light of the moon, ripples and fluxes that swirled around the lone, pink haired girl signaled the re-awakening of an ability that had gone dormant, the memory of which she had tried to suppress. Now, they coiled and billowed around her, picking up speed, becoming more frenetic with each passing moment. She had not forgotten what they were capable of, nor had she forgotten what she had been capable of doing with them.

With disregard for herself, Keade walked down the middle of the road, treading the fragmented white line of the road's median line. She wasn't going to hide or do anything that might endanger Kouta. Had the sparking of a million brighter futures not insinuatingly beckoned her to keep fighting for life, Keade would have had to smile at the thought that she was going to at least die get to give her life for the ones that she had taken from Kouta. Now, all she could feel was the moisture accumulating in the corners of her eyes, saw the world blur a little from behind a salty tear.

The tears stopped as she locked down for battle. Like a green light for all systems go, a spotlight tore a hole in the darkness. In the center, stood Kouta. His hands were bound as were his feet. He simply stood very still, his head cast down though when he lifted it to look at her, she wished he had kept it down. One eye was one, large swollen protrusion and a crusted tickle of blood laced from his split lip. Despite her killer instincts imploring her not to, Keade rushed to the helpless boy who stood before her. There was something amiss though in his eyes. That shouldn't be a surprise. She knew that they were going to try to kill her; yet, there was something beyond the obvious, something that somehow went beyond the extremes that this situation manifested.

She reached him but didn't embrace, didn't close her eyes in an elated and tragic rush of emotion. Instead, she was looking past him, to where they would be. Armed to the teeth, ready to blink her out. But what lay beyond Kouta's eyes? He surrendered to her without even asking.

* * *

Part IV: Someone to Tell the Story

"I would have used my self as a shield to get you out of here… I said I would never let them take you back… but," his voice faltered for a second, Keade's pupil's dilated, her breath caught in her throat, "they were ordered to kill me too."

Her breath, like the bullet that charged towards them, escaped from her lips as she shoved her vectors into a defensive position around herself and Kouta. Yet, when the first explosion pushed her vectors out of the way, she realized things were going to get worse than she could have imagined. The reflexes were still there she realized as her vectors leaped out, not to block the bullets that rained down like a monsoon of Judgment, but to deflect them, just long enough to get Kouta out of here.

Slowly, she backed up, Kouta following her but, in his attempt to shield her from shrapnel, standing in front of her. The volleys were speeding up and she could feel the air's temperature spike as a bullet would crack by her ear. In what seemed like an eternity, they were at a point where Kouta could run behind a concrete barricade while Keade shielded him. He ran grabbing Keade's hand, trying to get her into safety but she held her ground. A nearby explosion sent a glowing piece of concrete into her arm and she flinched but her resolution remained set and immutable as a diamond. He looked questioningly, pleadingly at her. However, in those few, incalculable moments, she made it clear to him that she was not coming, not now anyways. Futility bleated in his ears as he saw her turn and run directly into the barrage, then his world fell into the sky as one of her vectors pushed him over the barricade he was standing against.

* * *

Part V: The Bound Angel Achieves Flight

The pavement, hard against her feet was a comfort. It reminded her that the world was still there, that not everything was disappearing around her. The rounds zipped through the air around her, cut through the blankness of the night air. They ricocheted of her vectors and tore in to the cement and steel around her. Explosions attempted to push back the darkness as flying debris lashed out in glowing streaks in every direction, a cascade of glowing embers. They caught in her skin, embedded themselves in her flesh. However, they were of no concern, as long as she could keep diverting the volatile messengers of death that came at her in waves. The continuity lasted only a moment longer before her feet no longer made contact with the single guarantee that this was not a never ending nightmare. Her vectors sent shockwaves through the ground as they launched her to meet the moon slit sky. The bullets followed her up though, providing her with a continuity of brutality. She braced against them, split seconds that launched her higher, sent her cart-wheeling through the void as hell opened beneath her.

One of her vectors clawed into a supporting beam of the bridge that stood directly above the contingency of armed men beneath her. Her skin burned upon her, it flowed with blood from the myriad cuts and scrapes that traced disjointed and haphazard patterns on her skin. On the iron beam, her form silhouetted against the ignorant stars that burned through space, she breathed in for a second the cool air that wavered by. For one second, she tasted the cool, clean air away from the death and chaos that was about to happen about a hundred feet bellow her. She looked down, saw them checking the sky, guns bristling in every direction but center.

* * *

Part VI: Old Habits Make Others Die Hard

Like an angel coming to deliver death upon the world, she fell, let gravity take her in its cold, unyielding grasp. Her back arched and soon she was coming down feet first as the bullets began to ascend to her. One chance, one split second, one in a million, out of no where coincidence did she need… and here it was! Her vector grabbed a screaming bullet out of the air and let its momentum steer her in a quick circle. The heat from the friction made a flaming halo around her as she continued to plummet, releasing the round back to its senders. Flames tore at the sky and the men around it. Screams welcomed her as she landed amongst the debris.

She sprung to her feet. The flaming debris framed her in a ghastly crimson of war, of chaos, of death. Her vectors twisted the light as easily as they began to twist the surrounding forces in deformed, ravaged corpses. Her furry, at the thought that they would dare try to take the last, final reason to live from her, drove her into a rage so complete that the surrounding flames could not complete with the horrible iridescence that seemed to burn from her soul and consume the squirming, pitiful, screaming fresh around her. Their weapons counted for nothing now but, in their blind panic, they didn't know what else to do. They fired into one another, crossfire tearing brothers in arms limb from limb as the vectors continued their rampage. They flickered, appearing in one place then another as if they were on a real of film that kept skipping. No one knew who would be next but death came to each of them in their turn. The screams of the dying tore into the sky who did not answer back. Some of them, in their desperation to get as far from this pit as possible, slipped and fell into an ocean of warm blood and there, flapped, gibbering and screaming until a vector, like a grotesque anaconda came and helped to feed the raging river of blood that was beginning to cascade over the sides of the bridge. There was no stopping them as they tore through armor, muscle, and bone. There was no escaping them as she darted, fueled by blood-lust, from one end of the quickly falling squad to the other, cutting them down, sending once single bodies into multiple directions, streaming blood through the air. The scene would have continued on but, as soon as it had happened, she disappeared. They scrambled to figure out if she was just toying with them or if she had truly departed, a visitation by a specter called back to the chains that bound it in the caverns of Avernus.

Kouta saw and heard the gun fire cease. He heard now only the low rolling of the screams of the dying and the insane. He didn't know what this could mean. Either she had decided to call off the attack or… There was no way, maybe, maybe this time she hadn't been so lucky. Maybe this time, the overwhelming forces had finally accomplished their depraved mission. Kouta didn't think this through as he clung to the rail and made his way to the dancing flames that cast distorted shadows of mutilated bodies streaming over the pavement. He held tightly, hoping that, in the confusion, no one would see him sneaking along the outside of the railing. He was entranced by the scene that was warped and twisted in the writhing light. What few survivors were left were simply looking around, stunned. They stumbled through the bodies and entrails, they tripped over torsos divorced from legs. They knelt amongst mounds of broken bodies. Something caught his attention only as he tripped over it. His hand caught the railing, the sea beckoned below him.

Quickly, he struggled to regain his footing, hoisting himself back to his low crouch, skirting the outside of the railing. He looked down to see what he had stumbled over and gagged to see it was a hand, attached to nothing other than that strange and vicious rifle. He didn't know why, but he took the rifle, prying the cooling hand of the hand grip with near infinite disdain. He didn't know much about guns but he knew enough to pull the trigger. He shouldered the weapon with its shoulder strap and placed both hands on the railing again. He didn't see Keade in amongst the human debris. His heart began to race, his chest constrict. Where was she? Perhaps, perhaps she was in one of the moving bunkers. His thoughts were a jumble that translated simply to get to those bunkers.

* * *

Part VII: Eye On the Prize

Keade had not been drawn away by mercy, thinking that she had inflicted enough pain on them. Instead, she had caught sight of something much more valuable, something that could end this. Tonight. The silhouette of a man built like the bunker he stood before smiled menacingly out at her. She knew this had to be it, the pressure point; and if it wasn't maybe he would at least be high enough up on the food chain to send a message to whoever was in charge that to attack her was to invite death. As she saw him, she leapt from the maelstrom of suffering, catapulting herself up and over the bunker that the man had emerged from. A door slid open and she entered, ready to end this. Ready to take this monster disguised as a man to hell. To where they had sentenced her.

* * *

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I left it with a bit of a cliff-hanger since it wouldn't be any fun to just wrap it up so quickly, now would it? Anyways, as I said, I did try to keep the violence level down so, this could have been a lot worse; however, I did try to keep it in the realm of teen. This won't be a problem in my next fan fic which is going straight to M-rating in the Hellsing section... so expect some serious brutality once I finish this fan fic. 


	13. Chapter 13: Into the Sea With Despair!

I don't own any characters from Elfen Lied nor does my plot reflect the plot of the actual manga or anime. I am not affiliated with the creators or producers of the manga or anime.

* * *

Part I: Ante Chamber and Below

A portal opened in the form of panel slowly hissing as it slid out of the way. What met Keade's eyes was completely incongruous with the bleeding, flaming hell that was just on the other side of the large vehicle. The inside of the structure was well lit by a series of light tubes that traveled in rows from one end of the chamber to the other. A leather couch, puffed like a defensive animal, was pushed against a wall on one end of the room. A few computer consoles stood at the other end, blinking and humming with life and information.

The influences of the horrible occurrences were not completely erased or supplanted by luxury however. If anything, the grotesqueness of the whole thing was brought into a wretched clarity by what Keade saw on, or rather through, the wall facing her. Nearly the entire wall was a two way mirror of some sort but everything it allowed to be seen was painted in a lurid green. It was an advanced fiber optics display that enabled the person to choose the light waves and frequencies of choice to be dialed up or down. In effect, a general could observe through the fog of war what was going on in the battle field while remaining rather safe and comfortable. Further than the wall of green forms of death and mutilation, was something that sent Keade's mind rushing like a dagger into her own chest: next to the door she had just entered into, was girl strapped down and connected with multiple electrical leads. Two small bone growths jutted from her skull, giving her the appearance of having horns.

She didn't know the meaning of this until she realized that she was beginning to levitate, was being picked up by her vectors right off the ground! She struggled, trying to get out of the clawing grasp of the other Diclonius' vectors but they held as tightly as shackles. She flailed her arms, hoping she could maybe land a punch on her but she was out of reach. She let out a pained yelp as she felt her legs and arms suddenly get wrenched to either side, leaving her totally vulnerable in the posture of an anatomical model.

* * *

Part II: May They Choke Upon the Corpses They Consume

She grit her teeth and snarled at the man who simply stood there, smiling placidly, arrogantly at her. Against the crawling, spasmodic flames and bodies, the man looked like the lord of a domain of violence and death. He stepped forward, not wasting a motion, expending no more energy than he had to. Slowly, he walked towards her, stopping only when they were face to face.

"Hello, Lucy. I am Director Kakuzawa. I run this company; I own this company; and, until your little escape, I owned you." His smile was broad, barely under his control. The glint in his eye was a fractured, volatile flame that seemed always on the verge of burning out of control. "Anyways, I've been wanting to repossess you for quite some time. You see," and for the first time Keade had no choice to gasp in amazement, "I need you. You are the queen of the Diclonii and are the only one to be able to reproduce." He said this while removing his hair piece. Underneath, two stubby protrusions stretched and raised the skin into two, not quite horns, but knobs. He smiled at her shock, he smiled at her dismay, he smiled at the look that came over her face when he saw the blood drain out of it. She knew what he was going to say next but he just kept leering at her, hoping that the delay was hurting, like a prisoner who watches his executioner take a few practice swings, never knowing which one was going to be the real thing. Finally, he couldn't help it, he needed to drive the knife deeper, needed to penetrate deeper into her soul. He was going to destroy her utterly and was going to enjoy it.

"As you can see, I am part Diclonius and thus, if I should mate with a human, this trait will be even more diluted. This is where you come in." His smile grew more, burdening his facial muscles with pulling back those anemic lips to reveal those dull teeth that seemed only a front to the fangs that he really had. "Oh, I could easily just use in vitro and just keep you as a production facility for the new race that will take this planet but, then I wouldn't get to see you squirm and scream and beg for me to stop." That smile became ravenous, perversely off kilter. It was the smile of a creature that just wore a human skin for show.

Keade couldn't bare to look at him. He was more twisted then just about anything that she had ever encountered. She swung her eyes away, turning redder, more anxious at the though of what was going to happen soon.

Looking at her reaction from madness glazed eyes, Kakuzawa laughed, a deep throated sound that sounded like his nasal passages were occluded. "Just imagine," he began as wistfully as if he were sharing his view of a beautiful future with a trusted friend, "the way the new race will regard me. The myths that will build up about me as their god! 'The powerful god swoops in one night to take and impregnate the queen of their kind and from their union a new master of the world is born!'"

Keade forced herself to look at him. And she was always made to feel that she was the monster? She had only wanted to grow up as any other person would! "You're insane!" she roared at him. Even in this hopeless, dark turn of events, she wasn't about to back down despite the fact that her heart was beating so hard it seemed to actually be in her throat. She could hear the blood rushing through the arteries in her head, she could feel the sweat beads begin to emerge onto her skin. But she wasn't going to let this sack of waste know it, wouldn't let him know that right now she was terrified, that she wanted to just go home and return to her family. Instead, she looked the devil in the eye and defied him.

* * *

Part III: The Plan Illuminated by Flames

The light from burning bodies and debris flowed over everything like an eerily glowing oil spill. Kouta's hands were slick with sweat but it wasn't due to heat or fear for himself. All he could see when he closed his eyes for a second was Keade's body, destroyed, her face frozen in a death mask of pain. The thoughts sent him reeling with the electricity of uncertainty and grief for those who are trapped in between death and life.

The rifle hung, dead weight, on his shoulders. He didn't feel it though. His hands hurt from holding the cold iron railings so long and with such tenacity. He didn't feel that either. In fact, he was utterly in a world where dreams and wakefulness were both illusions and everything was only as terrifying as you could imagine. He was almost thankful for the slaughter that he crept by since it was taking all that the soldiers had to clean up the dead and control what was left of the living.

He passed the first of the blocky structures, its hideous bulk that of the bloated corpse of a whale. Just a few more until he got to where he needed to be. If she would be anywhere, alive or dead, it was most likely in the hull before which the arrogant man had reprimanded the captain like a priest of the dark arts disciplining a disciple.

* * *

Part IV: If Only for the Opportunity

Everyone in the command booth was in full buzz. People shouted into radios and took notes in seizure like hand jerks. People ran from one end of the dimly lit room to the other, sparing precious moments to reconnoiter then return to their post only to get up again and hastily relate another detail to another one of the busy attendants.

The only person who was quiet, reposed was Captain Noriyasu. He seemed to be disconnected from the entire fiasco, unconcerned with the monumental failure of the plan. He just sat placidly before the fiber optic display that painted the wall in a moving fresco of horror. Nothing made any sense. Especially the feelings he was harboring. He was dedicated to his men. He had helped train them, had helped to make them good at what they did. But watching this, he knew that they were no more his than the honor he hoped to hold on to after watching what played out. His men had not received the order to kill the civilian from him. He never wanted to incur any more death than necessary but what he had seen there had God damn nearly ripped the heart out of his chest. Despite the color distortions and grainy quality of the image, he could just make out that familiar expression on the girl when she reached the hostage.

He bit his lip. No matter what, after this he would walk away. He didn't need the money. It was useless anyways. It was coated, sticky with blood that didn't need to be spilled. He wanted to run from this, run so far away that he would never have deal with anything like this ever again. Never have to see another look like the one the girl had given the boy, the look of, "I am here and I am ready to die for you."

As much as he wanted to run, he felt bound by whatever duty, whatever sense of right or justice that had escaped this holocaust. Captain Noriyasu had to set things right. For the lives lost in the interminable depths of those dungeons, or the men who had been corrupted. This was not something he could turn away from, something that if he closed his eyes hard enough would just float away like a puff of ghastly smoke.

For now, Norisayu attentively watch the monitor that was fed an image by a camera that broadcast a synthetic green picture of the rear and front entrances of the bunked that Director Kakuzawa was using as his den. He just wanted one reason to go over there, just one excuse to walk over there. He'd shut the monitors so no one could see him disable the cameras when he reached them. He didn't want anyone to interfere. The last he had heard from the Director was that the search for the girl be abandoned and that no one disturb him under any circumstances. Something was not right. Things seemed to be progressing more like they were all on a stage and that Kakuzawa was the director in more ways than one.

* * *

Part V: Degradation Control

If only there had been cameras in the movable fortress, then Norisayu would have found the motivation he needed to go in there and break every protocol he had ever been taught. Inside, Kakuzawa had moved closer, deliberately holding back, trying to make the suspense last. But now, the time had grown stale, lost the slow, even taste of apprehension. Now, was the time to feast on the rich, tangy main course of pain and fear.

Slowly, he reached out and took the zipper on the back of Keade's red dress that was charred and frayed and slowly pulled it down. As his hand descended downwards with a singular brusqueness, he felt a shiver run in the opposite direction. He was enjoying this, enjoying the anticipation of hearing her screams ringing in his ears. When he had pulled the zipper down far enough he let the dress fall in a rumple around her. She looked down at herself and for a moment felt the tears coming. She was too strong for that though. She wasn't about to give into this.

"Number 27, spread her legs a little more." As soon as the command was issued, she felt her legs pulled to either side.

"How did I not detect her?" Keade asked, hoping to buy a few seconds more, maybe just a few moments could present her with a way out of this nightmare.

"We keep her well drugged. She's just conscious enough so that she can hear and obey my commands. If she doesn't," Keade turned and felt her stomach lurch as she witnessed the small girl's form jerking and writhing in her restraints, "she gets an electrical shock. She does what she's told and she doesn't hurt," he cut the electricity by releasing the button on a palm sized remote control and her tensed body relaxed again.

"You are a piece of shit you know that? A real monster! I'm going to kill you so you feel every God damned muscle and bone in your body be torn apart" she growled at him from behind clenched teeth. The look on his face was simple familiarity, as if he had made peace with this fact a long time ago. As for the threat, he apathetically backhanded her across the face though she didn't cry out or even grimace.

"I'm getting bored now. It's time for the final act." Kakuzawa began to peel down her underwear when he heard the metallic clang of someone banging on the rear portal. His eyes drifted to the video monitors. What crossed his face was a chimera of anger and a variety of amusement that seemed to lack a definite nature. Keade did not like this hybrid, bastardized version of happiness since it could only mean that there was something he held over them that they were not aware of. She couldn't really see what was on the screen but from the diabolic smile that crossed his face she knew it had to be interference he looked forward to crushing, which would mean Kouta had come back for her. "_Oh God, Kouta! Please get out of here before he takes you from me,_" she pleaded from inside her head.

She wasn't sure what he was waiting for but Kakuzawa stood impassibly before the monitor, his hands folded behind his back like the wings of a settled buzzard. He was waiting, there was something beyond what they both knew. He could smell dead flesh in the future; he just had to wait to glut himself on the spoils of war. Then, like a mad scientist letting a mouse into a gauntlet, he pressed a button and the panel slid away with a whine.

* * *

Part VI: Where Do We Go?

Kouta bounded into the room, the gun poised at his hip. He had no idea how to aim properly and Keade was sure that the only way he would be able to harm Kakuzawa was either through dumb luck, shrapnel, or just running up and hitting him with the rifle. Still, she was happy to see him, was even impressed at his bravery. Like some type of dashing prince here to rescue the maiden in distress. The only problem was, that as soon as she was out of the drugged, death like claws of the Diclonius girl, she was going to tear that pig apart herself.

Kouta's eyes went wide when he saw Keade. He felt his jaw go slack, unable to resist gravity's allure now that the brain had almost completely stopped caring about anything except the ragged form of the girl who stood mostly naked and bleeding over herself. Like an atom cleaving itself, Kouta's vision came in white streaks of hatred. The noises around him boiled in a white noise as his skin blistered and peeled from the surging, hellish heat that belched forth from his soul in arid gales. Kakuzawa must have seen the tempest in Kouta's eyes and found some sort of irony in it for the only reaction evoked was a self-assured smile.

"Let her go!" Kouta snarled, the sound of his voice more animal than human.

"Of course," he made a courtly sweep of his arm then ordered, in a voice that almost seemed cordial, to allow Keade to go free. "Of course, now that we've done that, your little lover is going to decide if she wants to watch as my commander blows the brains out of your skull."

On cue, Kouta registered the cool sensation of metal on the base of his neck. Keade, didn't see or sense the young man come in as she had busied herself removing the electrodes and IV from the captive Diclonius. As the words came out of his mouth, like notes from a strained and broken pipe organ, she had spun around to see the captain put the muzzle of his sterile black pistol to Kouta's neck. "_And now, where will this end?_" she thought as she helplessly watched as the gun threatened the life of the only person she had ever loved.

* * *

Part VII: Antidote/Extraction/Revenge

For a tense moment, a moment that seemed to span an interminable expanse of pain and fear, they stood there, just waiting for the gunshot that would bring about or end something in each one of their lives. The realization that there wasn't going to be a shot made each of them wince as if the bullet had in fact blasted away one more casualty in the manic game of dominance. The silence was a burden on their ears; it crept in and flooded their brains like a dull mallet across their synapses. The sterility that hung like a polluted miasma through which the director finally run his shout like a serrated blade through pliable flesh.

"Kill the males but don't harm the female! Tear them apart!" was his order.

"_You will do no such thing,_" was Keade's thought though it was not a formulation of words and sounds. It was an admonition of feeling, a rolling kaleidoscope of intentions or of abstractions. The drugs had worn off like ice thawing around the body of an antediluvian creature now thrust a thousand years ahead of her time. Keade knew she was reaching her, she could feel the gentle comprehension of her mind as it acted like a small cell in the act of phagocytosis. The simple command entered her and was metabolized, but there was still the possibility that she would just reject it and continue with her programmed duty. In which case, Keade would have no choice but to kill her though, by the very fact she was a Diclonius, she could feel a special connection with her and would not want such to be the outcome.

Director Kakuzawa's face; which had just a second ago, been an arid, craggy field of lines and furrows, hopelessly warped in a mask of blood-lust; began to slip, to take upon it a look of incomprehension. The change was like a one perversion just changing, shedding its skin, to change to another less blatant perversion. Keade was too busy negotiating with the increasingly aware Diclonius via telekinesis to notice the change that had come over Kakuzawa like a mist over water. She was navigating around obstacles and mines, traps of fear, pain, and loneliness. Kouta and Norisayu were focusing their weapons on Kakuzawa then Number Twenty-Seven, not sure where to expect the next attack from.

"Captain, get her out of here, please," Keade calmly instructed as her vectors went to work on the restraints that bound her. The girl would have simply fallen to the floor in a tangle of over-medicated limbs had not Keade's spectral arms not taken her gently and deposited her slight form into Norisayu's fully materialized embrace.

For a second he wasn't sure what to do. He needed to finish this, he needed to make sure that this ended now, tonight. He watched as Keade picked up the tarnished dress she had been wearing and donned it once again. "What am I supposed to do with her? I can't just leave now. Not after all of this." His mind stubbornly restricted him from any certain plan of action. The girl in his arms could easily rip him apart yet she was so broken and fragile in his arms. The demon who stood watching the scene play out wasn't doing anything but no doubt had a plan, as he always did. Finally, the girl and by who had fought so hard for each other stood almost in freeze frame. There was too much to record, to take in.

Again, that calm, controlled voice, "Captain, get her out of here. I have to take care of this. I'm owed this much." She stopped speaking then turned away a moment, but craned her head once more to say, "Could you watch out for her, protect her?"

"Sure. I'll do what I can," he said softly, looking down at the girl who was beginning to stir in his arms. The realization of what he could do finally dawned on him like a light that finally made its appearance in the swirl of chaos and he turned without another word to leave.

"You should take a good look when you walk outside, Captain Norisayu. Because this, this," he swept his arm as if he possessed the entire bridge, the sea, the world, "is going to be your grave." In his hand he held a small black remote and Norisayu knew what was coming next. Images of the shadow soaked board room flittered like the dead leaves of autumn down around their graves. He remembered those words, those plans.

"We need to get out of here," he shouted but Keade walked to the man that had set this all in motion. The look on his face was utter astonishment when Keade round housed him with her left fist and not her vector. The next expression to cross his face was colored by the lung emptying scream that emerged from his gullet. He buckled under his own weight and hit the ground hard, looking down at his destroyed knee caps that Keade's vectors had not broken, but crushed into a mass of bone, cartilage, and swollen flesh.

"I'm going to destroy you, then I'm going to go find where your little friends are, and then I'm going to kill them too! Do you hear me you little shit! I'm going to kill you all!" I'm going to fuc…"

The final punctuation rustled around the room, an exorcized demon in the sound of the crunching of his skull, the slick sound of his blood hitting the green display that continued to reveal the horrors that had scarred the night. That was it. The final punctuation on it all. The coda was just about to begin though as Kouta grabbed her hand and dragged her from the stupor that had engulfed her.

Before they parted, Norisayu turned and said, "Don't worry about us. We're going to be alright. We all are," he turned his head in the direction of the island compound and Keade saw the fires of war burning in his eyes. She knew what he meant. "Now just get out of here as fast as you can." He checked the synched timer on his watch. "Forty-five seconds to first detonation. Good luck."

They parted ways and ran frantically. Somewhere behind them, they heard a motor rev into life and the screech of rubber coerced into traction. They were running down the corridor of the bridge, the dead street lights keeping silent vigil over their progress. The soldiers they had passed didn't stop to ask questions or even take a resentful shot at them. They were to busy evacuating and packing their dead.

* * *

Part VIII: When All is Quiet Again

The first explosion registered as a bright, bluish flame that began at the center of the bridge. It licked at the night sky, it consumed the metal girders of the bridge. The shriek of twisting metal resounded in dolorous wails like vanquished banshees fleeing into the night. The bluish flames began to explode out and around the bridge, tracing a line of destruction painting in a ghoulish, asphyxiated blue. The night, with this percussive intruder, began to look like a fresh bruise. The blue and black merged and couple into a hemorrhagic purple as the bridge seemed to melt, rather than fall, into the sea below it. The blackness of the sea finally quelled the roaring explosions, buried the body of misery, and returned dominance to the night sky.

Two people sat upon concrete road blocks that had been placed to keep out wanderers. They held each other while one gave vent to a torrent of unbounded sadness. She shook and convulsed with the sobs that wracked her lungs. The chord had finally broken. The pressure released was more devastating than the explosives that had leveled the bridge. But now, this cacophony of long repressed emotions wasn't going to tear her down. As she sobbed into the boy's shoulder, her soul began to finally remove its armor, and throw down its weapons for good.

* * *

Author's Note: I have had more fun with this fan-fic than I care to admit. I hope that everyone else has enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I also think this is a good ending for this type of series for some reason. It's a good juxtaposition of the best and worse of the human condition. As bad as humans can be, there will always be those who are willing to do what is right and I hope that is something that this ending demonstrates well. I also hope that Kakuzawa's demise was fun for everyone cause I had a blast with that scene. Well, we're not quite done yet. We can't forget about the coda, now can we? I hope to have it up sooner than this chapter. It took a while to get right but hopefully the next, and final chapter, will be up soon. Until then, enjoy! 


	14. Chapter 14: The Song of Hope In the Wind

Hello. Sorry for being late with this. It took a long time to put the necessary elements together. In advance, I warn you this is a long chapter but diligence will be rewarded. So, with that, I state again that I own nothing from the Elfen Lied series. I own no characters and no intellectual rights.

* * *

Part I: Casualties

The days had passed in rapid succession. It was a river of time that slowed for nothing, only over-took or wove around obstacles. No matter what though, it kept flowing and it was bringing everyone down stream with it whether they were aware of it or not. Indeed, one of them was simply bobbing along on the waves, barely keeping her head above the roaring tide.

Half-way home, Keade had collapsed to the inky, cold pavement, her limbs limp. Kouta had gathered her into his arms as if she were a child and ran the rest of the way home. His muscles ached and protested. There were screams and moans in his head from different parts of his body that were bruised and compromised. Somewhere, he wasn't sure where, he became aware of the feeling of something warm running down his chin and realized that the dried tributary of blood was, like a dry riverbed before a bursting dam, being cleared of settled silt by the blast of a new current.

He just kept running, unaware of the lights that passed him from the street posts. His legs pumped and propelled him forward, possessed as it were by a singular, unflinching drive to get to refuge. When at last refuge had been found; the drive that had propelled him forward, that had given his body the numbness that had diverted the pain that otherwise would have reduced him to a crawl took its swift and unannounced leave. The muscles in his arms were bound in knots that threatened to tear themselves off his bones. His swollen eye eclipsed most of that obscure, haze lined night. Yet, the precious bundle of bleeding humanity that he cradled in his arms made him risk the pain that permeated his protesting body. Once inside, things became yet more hazy until there was nothing but the swirling mists of fading conscious that swept him away into nothingness.

From the time he had woken up, a day later, he had gone to Keade's side and waited. He waited to see her pull through, he waited to see her emerge from her body's cocoon, he kept vigil and care over her to see her smile with the realization that the Sword of Damocles no longer hung over her head. Flashbacks though accompanied him as he looked down at her inert form. The images and moving fragments ran in meandering paths that led to nowhere much like the cuts that streamed in scarlet ribbons over Keade's skin. He couldn't push them out of his mind. When he shut his eyes in hopes that wringing his eye lids would squeeze the visions from his consciousness, the only effect was an intensification of the sights and sounds. His eyelids were the sky against which so much death and suffering had taken place. The flashes of light that then came from pressing his own eyes with his fingers were the perfect recreation of the muzzle flashes that were directed at himself and Keade.

As he opened his eyes, he wondered if Keade were dreaming these things too. Was she trapped in this purgatory that replayed these dark moments against a static of her own body's pain? In her head, divided by the screen of sleep, was she cornered by the flashes and the rolling thunder of man-made death? Could she be confusing sleep's web with the death grip of the mind-controlled Diclonius who unknowingly help Kakuzawa to come within inches of raping her? He so desperately wanted to dive into her mind and rescue her from whatever nightmares were plaguing her. He wanted to rush in, a valiant knight, to sweep her up and carry her back to the waking world with him. Kouta let his head fall against his chest as he knelt beside her still body, still but for the undulations of her chest. So did this continue. So did he wait. Though, he was never left to be completely alone with his fears. Nana and Mayu were constantly by his and Keade's side.

* * *

Part II: The Furrows Upon Their Hearts

Nana looked down at her former enemy. She felt genuinely bad for her. This was the power of the organization that had held them both in their prolonged wakes that they were forced to attend day in and day out. Somewhere deep in the regions of her soul where past and present stand side by side like totems that grew as more experiences are imprinted on them, Nana glanced upon the idol representing the past. Her mind's eyes came to rest on the tier that depicted her dismemberment. Luridly displayed was every drop of blood spilled, every sinew mauled, every tear upon her anemic cheek. Somehow, from this depth, a certain sense of… could she recognize it without hating herself, without throwing herself from the vigil's company? Would she dare lend credence to this entity's existence? She had no choice to as the notes rose up to her consciousness in a litany of spite. She held her position but tore her eyes away from the sleeping form that lay before her.

She knew this feeling. It was contentment of the most twisted kind. Deep inside her, in a territory that is condoned off by her compassion and relegated sovereignty only so its services may be called upon in dire circumstances, a face leered out at her. It smiled at her, and with a corpse's mummified voice illuminated, "_You know this is what you wanted. You know that she deserved it. You know you're happy to see her like this, don't you?" _

Nana squeezed her eyes shut against the voice that crept from the grave in her heart. The mortifying stench of these allegations made her want to be sick for their perversity but most of all because she knew that the person she had been would have truly been happy. She was not that person now, just as Keade was not who she used to be. Still, the thought of her ability to be so remorseless raked her spirit, made her soul crawl through the rot of the brutality that had been forced into all of their lives. Yet, at another time, Keade's state would have been a private victory and she could not deny this. Now, all Nana wanted was for Keade to open her eyes. She wanted this to all go away so that maybe she could start over, get back to something safe. More than anything, she wanted Keade to awake and fill that final slot in their family. She wanted Keade to wake up and finally be safe at home.

The tears that began to leave slick trails down her soft cheeks were misinterpreted by Kouta to be tears only born of mourning. The truth, however, was worse to the poor girl who knew that these tears were for injuries she had not even inflicted. She kept the nature of her misery buried in her tortured being as Kouta held her close to him. He tried to protect her from the pain that they both knew came from nowhere else but from herself. No one could help her. She was powerless against her emotions.

Mayu sat upon her heels in a kneeling position. She looked down at the hands that wrung each other then began to knead the pink turtle neck she had donned just that morning. She had chosen the bright pink this morning since she had been trying to wear the most radiant colors in her wardrobe so as to maybe brighten the slate-grey spirits that hung oppressively like a fog in the inn. By the way Nana was crying and the persistent look of loss that wrought Kouta's eyes, Mayu concluded she could have worn a shirt with colors more extravagant than the mind could conceive of and still not help anyone.

A coldness crept up her spine as she thought of how they had spent those times trying to teach Keade how to cook and the way they had managed to laugh as though everything they had collectively shared had decided to wait outside the kitchen. It seemed so normal for them to be there together, like they could have been sisters just spending a day together. Now, she watched as she sat in a dream world or perhaps in a void of nothing. Anxiety palpated her heart to an abnormally fast rhythm as if it were in the spasmodic hand of surgeon. She wondered how long she would be in that stupor; moreover, she wondered if there was a reason she was not coming out of this over-reaching slumber. She looked at the faces present, her eyes rolling over each countenance that seemed to be a unique work of sorrow. If only she could see her own face, see the manipulation of her muscles and skin under the skilled hand of sadness and worry. As her eyes reached Yuka, her mind constricted into a ball of contemplation of what was going through her heart.

Yuka wondered through her inner forest of feelings without compass, utterly disoriented. Was jealousy strong enough to overcome compassion? She couldn't let her own spite, her own desire overcome her humanity. The feelings she held for Keade were still tenebrous to a point because she knew that when she awoke, if she awoke, Kouta would be all hers. Yet, hadn't she earned this for herself? Was it not Keade that had run into the gaping maw of death to deliver Kouta from his fate? Keade had acted with no concern for herself to save Kouta and in doing so, she had relegated herself to this state. Yuka knew that she had not acted as such; she knew she had never, nor could she ever claim to doing anything so spectacular.

Bitter resignation filled the void where her hopes and dreams once set up a garden. Now, the clawing, spindles of despair tore at her insides in the howling wind that picked up to carry her into a future devoid of Kouta's affection. As much as she wanted him to herself, there was nothing that she could do. With as much grace as she could muster, she forced her soul to make peace with this fact. In Kouta's sad, expectant eyes, she saw a fire that shone only when his azure eyes fell upon Keade. It was a look she would never receive. The loneliness took hold of her throat with a sharp, suffocating pain. She tried to swallow it down, stuff it bellow with the rest of her raw emotion; but, the more she failed at achieving this, the more frustrated with her own self she became. This cycle revolved enough so that finally, she felt the power of those internal winds pick up to a tumultuous screech that she held in check with the aid of her hand over her mouth as she ran quickly out of the room.

* * *

Part III: A Gift of Heart

Kouta broke from the placid side of his one-and-only love to follow Yuka out. He wasn't exactly sure of what was provoking her agony. He knew that Yuka was far from heartless and doubtless felt sadness for Keade's condition but what he did doubt was that it was intense enough to spur this type of overwhelming reaction. He followed the sound of her footsteps down the hall to the dining room, wondering as he passed empty rooms, what Yuka was going through. Before this latest disaster, when he had been talking to her on the way to college he had meant what he said about caring for her. He loved her. Just not in the way she wanted to be loved. Still, he wanted to be there for her and protect her. And now, he was going to do whatever he could to try to calm her down.

The door to the dining room was open yet Kouta still lingered a little longer by the entrance. His spirit was already careening wildly inside him, but now he was thinking of dealing with Yuka's volatile pathos and it was a prospect he was not looking forward to. His mind was still raw with grating anxiety and his spirit was still parched with desire to have Keade return to him from this interminable sleep. Kouta knew that he still had to care for those who were up and about, who were standing by him during this time of returning shadows.

With light foot steps, Kouta entered the room. Yuka was sitting in one of the red, plush chairs that, in better weather, would have looked out over the garden. Yuka, however, seemed to be looking into the past, when the garden would have been rediscovering its bloom instead of parting with it; for, now she sat facing the closed sliding doors at a garden that was slowly succumbing to the chill breath of fall. Yuka turned around as soon as Kouta's footsteps registered through the beating of her thoughts. She stood, slowly, as if she were carrying a weight upon her shoulders. Then she crossed the room to Kouta, who had stopped once he saw Yuka depart from her seat.

She crossed with a grace he had never realized she possessed. Her feet seemed to pass straight over the carpeted floor without a sound, like she was not making contact with the ground at all. When she finally reached Kouta, she stood toe to toe with him. For a few moments that seemed to span hours, she looked into his eyes. He didn't know what she was doing, just staring into his eyes as though she were looking for something. He began to feel tight, as though his skin was constricting around him yet his arms felt far too heavy than he had ever imagined them. Yet she kept looking into him, her eyes plaintive, still hoping that maybe she would find what she was looking for.

Kouta didn't have a chance to react, to maybe make some kind of plea for her to stop for in a heartbeat, Yuka's mouth pressed against his. There were feelings of sparks that radiated from her soft lips; there was the pulse of electricity from her arms that embraced him with the fervor of the Lost that desperately cling to what they can never have. He didn't try to push away, though he knew that he should, yet his muscles seemed to have fallen into the grasp of that narcotic like slumber that left all but his consciousness muted and inaccessible. Now, he hung there, her mouth pressing urgently against his. It wasn't just his lapse of control that prevented him from pulling or pushing away. There was something in this kiss. There was a finality, a last indulgence that made Kouta feel that he should just let her have this.

Slowly, she relinquished her hold of him, of her hopes. Slowly, as she settled back, settled into a position as a friend, a cousin, Kouta saw the tears that were racing down her cheeks. His tongue tripped over itself, not sure what to say, thinking that maybe this should be her time to talk and he was better off to keep silent.

"Kouta, I won't interfere anymore," was her response that hung on the air, a string of words that hung gently upon the ether. "Kouta, I always wanted you all to myself. I always just wanted it to be you and me; but, if that means you have to walk away from her, that, you have walk away from each other… I can't do that. I can't make you give each other up, as much as I love you, I just can't ask that of you, not after everything… everything you two have been through." She looked him in the eyes still and Kouta felt pity. He felt true pity that she would have to be miserable as a natural consequence of his happiness.

Without thinking, with a swiftness of one adept at sympathy, Kouta wrapped his still crying cousin in his arms. As he pressed her to his chest, a sharpness registered in his back which he understood to be Yuka's fingernails. He didn't protest, didn't make any motion to dislodge Yuka's grasping hands. He just held her while she soaked his collar with the tears that flowed from the puncture made by cruel reality into her heart. Her chest heaved every so often as she tried to not make a large display of her pain intoxicated soul.

* * *

Part IV: There Was a Light Through the Darkness

The embrace of gratitude was obsequiously cut short when Mayu and Nana started to chant in unison that Keade was finally coming around. Before Kouta could bolt out the door, he put his hands on his cousin's small shoulders and stared into her eyes, hoping that maybe he could transfer some of his sincerity into her so that she could understand just how much he loved her right now. "Thank you so much," was all he could choke out before she had taken his hand and was running with him down the corridor.

Kouta stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Keade sitting up on her mat, Mayu and Nana already assaulting her with questions on if she was feeling alright and whether she knew who they were and where she was. Keade was still visibly tethered to the land of sleep. Her eyes drooped slightly, threatening to close and entomb her once again in the ether of unconsciousness. Her eyes lost the dreamy ambiguity of sleep as soon as they locked onto Kouta's blue, spark filled eyes.

Kouta felt the need to grasp onto the door to keep from sinking the floor. He just looked at her, feeling that this was the true moment he had been waiting for. It seemed like a dream, like he himself were floating into Keade's state of ethereal awareness. His legs were protesting his weight upon them, quivering with the promises of letting him drop to the floor. It wouldn't have mattered to him though at this point. He would gladly crawl on his hands and knees to get to her, to have her awake in his arms. He took a faltering step forward to call his deviant legs' bluffs and found that they were not going to fall away beneath him. Despite this, it felt like every step he took was bringing him closer to collapsing; however, it was a collapse he would welcome. It was the collapse of all the walls. There was no place left to hide, there was no place to call shelter or to separate them anymore. Vaguely in the back of his mind, something admonished that there could be others that would take the reigns for the deceased madman Kakuzawa; but, if Norisayu had succeeded in carrying out an attack on the company's strong hold as he had insinuated, then he had decapitated the horse upon which the rider had ridden. Kouta could only hope for Keade's sake, hope that nothing else could cause tears to run forth from those eyes that he now looked into as he fell to his knees before her. He prayed silently that nothing else could make blood run from the delicate skin that his fingers brushed in there journey to her cheek. He would have given his soul to protect her and preserve the relieved smile that playfully crossed her lips as they pulled each other to to an embrace that had been delayed too long.

She laughed a little, a gentle sound that made Kouta's heart flutter, "I'm so happy I get to wake up to My Little Dream," she breathed.

"Oh God Keade," Kouta began breathlessly, "You had me worried, you had me so worried. When you just passed out on me, I had no idea what was the matter with you. I was afraid it was blood loss but I knew we couldn't bring you to a hospital without getting you into more trouble so I brought you back here. I was so scared when you weren't coming around. Oh God, I'm so happy to have you back!"

He pulled her to himself gently, minding her still fragile nature. His hand smoothed her sleep matted hair that flowed down her back in a radiant waterfall of crimson. "Kouta? Has there been anything about the facility?" she inquired.

"No, not yet Keade. But I'm sure he'll find away to take care of them," he reassured her.

"I hope so. I hope so," she trailed off. "I really don't want to do that ever again." A sardonic smile crossed her face, smearing her beauty just a bit.

"Nah, this is it. You won't," he stopped a second as he considered the solitary nature of the statement, "we won't ever have to go through this again. I really think, I think we might finally be free of this, of all of this. Unless that maniac finds a way to put his head back together." He smiled comfortingly, hoping that she would trust him after he had lied to her before; though, he could never have known that his reassurances were to be crushed beneath Kakuzawa's frantic run to power. Though the comfort though, Keade detected the glint of satisfaction that he got with the thought of Kakuzawa's death. She could feel the energy that bubbled beneath Kouta's skin, the lasting hatred of the man who had hurt her for so long.

For a second, Keade remained phlegmatic. She just stared blankly past Kouta's shoulder at nothing in particular. Suddenly Keade looked Kouta in the eyes and said, "I want to go outside."

Kouta was caught of guard by the brusqueness of the request. She cocked her head in amusement at his stunned and confused look. "I don't get it," he began, his sympathetic smile turning coy.

"What's not to get? Me, I," she pointed to herself emphatically, "want to go outside, which should be right over there." She pointed out in the direction where the inn would open into the garden that was quickly falling into the twilight of the season.

"Well, I can't let you go like this," he referred to her nakedness beneath the sheet, smiling sheepishly. She simply looked down at her body that was, for the most part, still wrapped in bandages. The sight of her injured body sent a small wave of nausea through her core, making her skin crawl over her, accenting each and every cut.

"By the looks of it, I'm already pretty well covered," she quipped. Kouta only looked down regretfully but returned with a voice saturated with sympathy and admiration.

"I've never know anyone as strong as you. I've never met anyone who could do what you've done, survive everything that you have. Keade, you honestly amaze me. It's funny to think that I knew you were cool the moment I met you" A rouge of deep appreciation painted Keade's face, running like a vitality elixir down her throat and into her mostly wrapped chest.

"You just thought the horns were cool," she teased back at him.

"If that were the case, that how come I still think you're just as cool now?" he questioned.

With a little laugh, a laugh that was equal parts flattered excitement and part the feeling silly for having to ask for someone's help, Keade began, "Would you mind helping me up?"

He immediately acquiesced, gently hoisting her up to her feet. She teetered a moment, unsure of her legs' commitment to supporting her. Kouta gently held her shoulders to steady her until she gently removed his hands, putting her arms out for balance as she did so. Despite the extensive bandages, Keade was still mostly naked, though Kouta felt strangely at ease, not nearly as abashed as he had been. He casually went to the closet and removed a long bath robe that he gently draped over her, fastening the sash gently so as to not cause her any pain.

For the first time, they noticed that they had been left alone in the room. Somewhere back, during the time their minds had seemingly decided to disregard any other beings in the room and concentrate full attention on each other; Mayu, Nana, and Yuka had taken their leave. Alone, unobserved, they abandoned themselves to a passionate kiss. Thrusting their lips together, they let the flame of another place, another time, another world ignite their flesh. Kouta was, however, always mindful of Keade's injuries, holding her as though she were of glass. His tenderness with her sent feverish pangs of desire through Keade's pulsing being. She reached up to stroke her lover's face. The warmth and softness of those delicate fingers made Kouta's heart beat against his chest in desperate attempts to free itself of his ribcage so that it could maybe fuse and become one with Keade's so it may never be separated from this feeling of warmth beyond comprehension.

When the flame had run its course and began to relinquish its influence over them, they parted. For a breathless moment they satisfied themselves with simply holding each other. Keade and Kouta both smiled a long, relaxed smile of contentment as they stood in a motionless dance in each other's arms.

* * *

Part V: The Promises of Light Bearing Lillies

Finally Kouta had remembered why it was that Keade had asked for his help and offered, "Let's go outside before it gets too cold. I don't think that robe will do much good out there if it gets much cooler." He offered his arm as a support and fixed his other arm around her waist to support her. As her steps became more sure, her gait increased into her usual stride.

As they passed through the door, they were caught in the amber current of the sinking sun. The cold lacked any urgency but rather languished comfortably around them, not bothering to assault them. Slowly they watched as the sun fell lower and lower, surrendering to the charms of the Lunar Mother who cast an approving glance down at the two people who looked back upon her in her celestial kingdom. Her fullness in the sky bespoke of her pregnancy of possibilities that she would give birth to the next day, and for each of the subsequent days Kouta and Keade would be together.

Neither of them saw the possibilities that would unfold before them in the coming days or the coming years. Neither could see that in the next few days, the news would report that an insider had leaked what was going on in the island facility. Neither of them knew the thrill that would fill them as the cameras captured the leaping flames that erupted from the facility which Captain Norisayu and a whole battalion of his most trusted soldiers had successfully assaulted. Nor did they see now the reports of cruelty that would be issued on the news or how the human test subjects were being kept in a safe place while receiving medical and psychological attention in an attempt to salvage their tormented minds from collapse. If they could have seen how multiple governments tore the shadowy organization apart, incarcerating just about everyone involved with the project that had dehumanized so many, they would have wept for joy in each other's arms. But they didn't see what lay ahead for them yet.

Similarly, as Kouta gently embraced Keade around her bandaged midriff, he was unaware that, in the future, the womb that lay beneath the bandages, the injuries, and the flesh would bear him a son and a daughter. Neither could predict that both would grow up in a world that though, tentatively, still embrace and protect the emerging Diclonius race. Neither could have guessed that by the time their children had reached middle age, fully half of the world's population would be Diclonius and that the impact they held would be dramatic, a true step forward in human evolution. Their telepathic link to one another would cause people to gain a new sense of empathy and openness to one another that would lead subsequent generations to rationalize and embrace one another with the same consideration that they would give to themselves.

Right now, they were content with the promises the moon made to them. They were content to hold one another, to feel the permanence in the embrace, the punctuation upon a chapter written in blood. As the moon's reign came upon them and absolved them of the past's atrocities, Keade turned to face Kouta. In the moon's beams, they embraced one another while a song came wafting over the breeze, planting a flower in their souls that they would cultivate together into a most beautiful Lilly.

* * *

Author's Note: Here it is! The end! I loved writing this, reading your comments, and hopefully entertaining you all. I hope you like the fact that every residence in the Inn is given some time since they all contribute to the story and should thus be given a good send-off. Plus, I hope this ending is a good contrast to the lugubrious earlier chapters. Well, until my next fan-fic which will be in the Hellsing section, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and the story as a whole. 


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